Sunday, September 28, 2008

Ensenada Fish Market, Mexico Y.O.Y

We blogged about this a few months ago apparent white shark young of the year being sold at the Ensenada Fish Market as "swordfish and marlin".

This month we ventured back down to the Ensenada Fish Market looking for evidence of more pups on sale. While we did not find any pups for the first time in three years, we did discover a series of shark carcass without skins being sold as "swordfish and marlin".

Perhaps we made a difference, but we think not.

Our contact in Ensenda who works with the local shark fishing co-op tells us he's still catching many Y.O.Y and they are still being sold up and down the coast.

The irony here is within 15 minutes of this market are agencies tasked with protecting Mexico's Bio-Spheres and local universities that do serious work with oceans and marine life in and around Mexico.

As a first step we would like to see DNA sampling of all shark species at this market and a solid program of education with the local fishermen and sellers about sharks especially white shark pups.

The path to change is through education and we have enough preliminary data out there to show white shark pups migrating past Ensenada on their way to the Sea of Cortez. With such a vulnerable population at stake the timing could not be better.

Mother of Montauk-BREAKING NEWS

Our in-depth and dare we say "exhaustive" coverage of this summers strangest beach story the Montauk Monster is not over...just yet.

From our Tip Line this morning an email and series of images from Ocean Beach, California being dubbed as "The Mother of Montauk":

Hey Shark Divers,

We love your blog. You're going to like this one. This morning we were walking our dog along Ocean Beach just past Sloat Ave and came across this "thing" on the sand. It was about 5 feet long and weighed about 60 pounds. It had rows of triangular teeth like a sharks and webbed claw hands with no tail. The back end was crushed and rotting and it was steaming and smelled like sulfur. Our dog would not go near the thing.

We have no idea what this thing is, Mother of Montauk? What do you think?

Editors Note: We have no idea what this is but thanks for using our tip line to bring it to the world. Personally we *think* that some sort of alien ship filled with off world critters from across the galaxy crashed into the ocean this summer. These things have been washing up all over the place.