Five-Meter GWS?

Mako vs GWS - awesome pic by Ozzie Sam. Notice how wide the caudal keel is!   
Source - click for detail

Watch.

Hmmmmm.

For what it is worth, methinks that that Shark does not move with the gravitas of a 5-meter animal but rather, like a much smaller individual; and the very pointy snout and very wide caudal keel appear more indicative of a Shortfin Mako, at least to me.

But who am I to say.

Both species inhabit the Med, with the Mako being far more common, albeit locally threatened like all Sharks there. And do re-read this post about the rather fascinating theory about the Australian origins of the Mediterranean GWS population - paper here!
But my call remains that this is a sprightly Mako of 2-2.5m.

Original FB post here, story here.

PS - Bingo: Michael Domeier here!
PPS - compare to this clip of a Mako @ approx 0:20ff!



PPPS -  and now we got ourselves some experts...

Great White Pup from Turkey - Video!

Normally, we only get to see images like this one - source.

Wow.

Kudos to the fisherman for letting her go.

I sure hope she makes it.

Alas, she appears exhausted, and the wide open mouth and the dilated and possibly wounded gills (by the trammel net?) are not boding well.

But watch for yourselves.

Heaps of supplemental information here.

Yes it's likely that they have come via South Africa - but according to the latest research, it appears that the isolated population in the Med may have originated from a (single?) female from Australia!

David - over to you! :)

H/T: Cristina. Grazie!

Mediterranean Elasmobranchs - two Movies by David!

Xisco Perez's 2nd Great White, Mallorca 1976 - source.

The big Elasmobranchs in the Med are screwed.

This insight is obviously not new - but it is once again being confirmed by this latest assessment by the FAO, paper here.

With that in mind, David's movies are of particular importance.

I've blogged about A Ray of Light a while ago and can only once again invite everybody to watch it.

Fantastic, isn't it.

And I'm obviously not the only one liking it.

Not only has the movie helped Brad take his Stingray conservation project to the next level, but it is now attracting international praise which bodes extremely well both for Brad but also for David Diley as a film maker!

Huge kudos once again!

Which brings me straight to Behind Blue Glass.

Remember?

WeIl the wait is now officially over.

As announced last December, it is finally being released to the public in tandem with Vimeo's launch of its ingenious Tip Jar pay-per-view (= pay once, watch forever) service. The price for viewing it is a ridiculous 5.99 bucks and I leave it to David to tell you why you should watch it.

And on top of all of that, he just simply deserves your solidarity - for being passionate, extremely hard working and talented, and just simply a good guy who loves Sharks like crazy!

C'mon - just DO it!

You won't regret it for so many reasons, all of which are good!

Thank you!

PS And talking of the Med's GWS.

Want to know where the nurseries are?

Read the paper linked at the top - and no, I'm not telling! :)

Killing a GWS in the Med

This is how Ozzie GWS could have ended up in the Med - click for detail

Warning - this is really hard to watch.

What a crying shame - the more as the Mediterranean GWS may only be a very small isolated population with little to no exchange with the stock in the Atlantic Ocean.

From Shark Year Magazine.

GW in Tunisia!

This GW was apparently caught in Tunisia.

How did these creatures get there?

Very possibly, by swimming there from Oz!
They got there because a few pregnant females got lost around the Cape of Good Hope some 450,000 years ago and ended up in the Atlantic Ocean, according to scientists from Aberdeen University. This is a beautiful hypothesis and a fantastic paper and everybody should read it!
Talk about an epic going walkabout!

Or, as the Abstract states

Antipodean white sharks on a Mediterranean walkabout?
Historical dispersal leads to genetic discontinuity and an endangered anomalous population
Chrysoula Gubili, Raşit Bilgin, Evrim Kalkan, S. Ünsal Karhan, Catherine S.Jones, David W. Sims, Hakan Kabasakal, Andrew P. Martin and Leslie R. Noble

The provenance of white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in the Mediterranean is both a conundrum and an important conservation issue.
Considering this species's propensity for natal philopatry, any evidence that the Mediterranean stock has little or no contemporary immigration from the Atlantic would suggest that it is extraordinarily vulnerable. To address this issue we sequenced the mitochondrial control region of four rare Mediterranean white sharks. Unexpectedly, the juvenile sequences were identical although collected at different locations and times, showing little genetic differentiation from Indo-Pacific lineages, but strong separation from geographically closer Atlantic/western Indian Ocean haplotypes.

Historical long-distance dispersal (probably a consequence of navigational error during past climatic oscillations) and potential founder effects are invoked to explain the anomalous relationships of this isolated 'sink' population, highlighting the present vulnerability of its nursery ground

The GWs in the Med are probably rare and severely depleted.
I've known about them ever since one killed the Italian dive pioneer Maurizio Sarra in 1962, a fact that is being remembered by Italy's prestigious underwater photography prize. They are regularly sighted off Sicily and have been caught everywhere including Mallorca as per David's brand new documentary Behind Blue Glass - and buddy don't u dare come here without my copy!

And then, there is Malta.
There, the Great White is protected thanks to our friend the indefatigable Sharkman, it is there that the largest ever GW was thought to have been caught (since debunked) and it is from there where we're being regularly entertained with fishy tales of attacks and further catches.

Thing is, we know next to nothing.
From what I understand, everybody knows there's GWs but nobody seems to be studying, let alone tracking them. Maybe this may be a fertile new ground for somebody of the caliber of Domeier instead of wasting energy on combating the territorial Californians?
Just a suggestion! :)

BTW Junior is doing just fine.
The latest ping shows him migrating normally and he's due to track back shortly - and I must say, I'm very much looking forward to the comments, and the images (!) by Domeier's abuse spouting detractors when he shows back at the Farallones!

Junior tracks: 2009/2010 offshore migration in yellow and the 2010/2011 offshore migration in red

Shark Diving in the Med?

Whilst researching the previous post, I came across the above picture on, of all sites, Wikipedia's trusted Tiger Shark page, where it has replaced our very own Scarface.
A Tiger Shark in Antalya, Kaş - Turkey, as the caption implies? Maybe feeding on the rare Mediterranean Monk Seals, the World's rarest Pinniped, that frequent the area? But then, what about the small blue-and-yellow fish: Yellowtail Snappers? In the Med?
Yeah, right.......

That reminds me of this spectacular picture (click to enlarge), taken by my friends Pascal and Denis deep down in Tiputa Pass in Rangiroa. Remember the very similar cover shot on Michael Aw's Australasia Scuba Diver? Now, it hangs in a Fijian dive shop and clients are being assured that is was taken on a local dive. Not so.


But despite the obvious hoax above, Turkey is still well worth considering.
Every June, Boncuk Bay becomes a nursing area for Sandbar Sharks. No, Fatma, they don't "lay eggs" (they are viviparous), but they can be easily observed even on snorkel. And if you're really lucky, you may even stumble upon Eleonora de Sabata, Italy's own Shark Lady, and contribute to her ongoing research project, like you contribute to Shark Conservation when visiting our Shark Reef Marine Reserve.

And then, there's ........... Lebanon!
Lebanon, I hear you ask? Why on Earth would anybody want to go diving in THAT place???

Because of Odontaspis ferox.
Remember Malpelo's infamous Inzan Tiger and its "Tiger Ragged Tooth Shark", a "cross between a Raggie and a Great White"?
Well, it appears that you now have a choice: strap on your tech gear (or be outright stupid), brave Malpelo's treacherous currents and multiple thermoclines and dash down to 200 feet, only to spot nada de nada on El Bajo del Monstruo - or, strap on your bulletproof vest and head straight to equally infamous Beirut, where you may be able to spot some Smalltooth Sand Tigers at a place called Shark Point between July and September.
Decisions, Decisions...........

Anyway, plenty of links to check out!
Enjoy!

99.99%

Rome: A new scientific study funded in part by the Lenfest Ocean Program has concluded that all shark species assessed in the Mediterranean Sea have declined by more than 97 percent in abundance and “catch weight” over the last 200 years.

The findings of the study, Loss of large predatory sharks from the Mediterranean Sea, published in the journal Conservation Biology, suggest several Mediterranean shark species are at risk of extinction, especially if current levels of fishing pressure continue. There used to be 47 species of Shark in the Mediterranean, of which 20 were considered "top predators". Now, some of the big Sharks are virtually extinct.

Hammerhead Sharks have declined the fastest, with no recorded sightings in the Mediterranean since 1995. Hammerheads are estimated to have declined by 99.99%

Blue Sharks have declined by 96.53% in abundance and by by 99.83% in biomass in the last 50 years, with the steepest decline in the waters around Spain

The two Mackerel Sharks (Porbeagle and Shortfin Mako) have declined by more than 99.99% in both abundance and biomass over the last 100 years.

Thresher Sharks are the only species detected in coastal waters in recent times. Threshers have nonetheless declined by more than 99.99% over the last 100 years.

"Usually at the apex of trophic chains, large sharks are expected to play an important role in the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems .
Thus, the decline of large sharks may have marked ecological consequences. In the Gulf of Mexico predator and competitor release effects have been evident after the depletion of large sharks . In the northwestern Atlantic the decline of great sharks from coastal ecosystems has triggered a trophic cascade that collapsed a century-old fishery for bay scallops. Moreover, food-web models from the Caribbean suggest that large predatory sharks are among the most strongly interacting species, and that their overfishing may have caused trophic cascades that contributed to the degradation of Caribbean ecosystems ."

"Our analysis, combined with previously published information, indicates that the Mediterranean Sea is losing a wide range of its predator species. In addition to large predatory sharks, cetaceans, pinnipeds, turtles, and large bony fishes have declined similarly.
The wider ecosystem consequences remain to be investigated. Nevertheless, in various other systems, it has been demonstrated that predators can play an important role in structuring communities by controlling prey populations and preventing ecological dominance. Losing top predators can induce strong increases in midlevel consumers, shifts in species interactions, and trophic cascades."