Goblin girl on.... diving with Herman!

A couple of weeks ago, I made something I've dreamed about for ten years now. It's not as cool as what most of the other people here get to do, but for me, in Sweden, this is about the best that you get!

Over the years, TV and newspapers that want to interview me have "dragged" me to our local aquarium here in Gothenburg. I always have to do the same thing: stand next to the tank or walk in the tunnel and stare at Herman - the resident sand tiger and KING of the tank. The aquarium is ten years old now and ever since they opened I've wanted to get into that tank!

We were filming a children's program that will be shown on Swedish telly in spring. Only, this time, instead of just gazing at Herman and the others, I was allowed to finally dive into the tank. I was in safe hands as I wasn't alone. My good friend Klas, who works at the aquarium, was with me. The last thing he said to me wasn't "Watch out for the sharks". No, it was "Remember they see EVERYTHING outside that window - LOOK GOOD!".

So down we went. Like ten times?! (Remember we were filming!) I'm such an inexperienced diver and those shallow depths... I was more like a yo-yo - trying to look GOOD! - than anything else.

Then he came, Herman. Out of the dark like a slow moving ghost. The other sharks: nurse, zebra and black tips kept their distance all the time. Even the often sulky sawfish was staying away. No, it would be impossible for anyone around to miss that Herman is the king of that tank.

I could of course understand that the guys filming me wanted me to be closer to the window, but that would mean no sharks close to the camera (we had no uw-cam) so I kept my distance. Maybe it's not the best time to practice your buoyancy when you are in a tank full of sharks, but since it's so seldom I get wet with a tank on my back, I took the opportunity (still trying to look GOOD). I think both me and Herman was kind of surprised when I suddenly were about to drop down on his head!

I've learned one very important thing from Manny Puig (we went snorkeling with great hammerheads once. Did I tell you about that?): always keep someone else in between you and the sharks! At least someone more experienced. So, I was very happy that Klas was with me when Herman decided to show us that we were invading his private space with our presence.

Like before, he came slowly towards us. Klas was little bit closer to him, when he suddenly turned 180 degrees, making a sound like a gun went off! It looked very much like when you see them testing the shark pod - only Klas hadn't done anything. Afterwards he told me that this is Herman's way to show that he is not too happy with us being there.

Anyway, we continued our dive for quite a while and nothing more happened. Then I had to break the surface a few times (for the show), but by then my ears were making so much unpleasant noise that it's only now that I start to hear ok again.

So, IF Herman had wanted to eat me he could easily have done that! And no, I wasn't really behaving "like you should around sharks", as I - as a very lousy diver - must have been making signals and noise like those of a whole shoal of wounded fish! Maybe he is just lazy and doesn't want to peel his food, but I think he knows me... After all, we've been seeing each other for ten years now ;-)


(The photo is an old one, showing me and Herman on one of our first dates.)

Goblin girl... on a Goblin boy update!

You might remember my new friend, Goblin boy?

Well, after soaking in alcohol at the Natural Museum here in Gothenburg for a few months, in a borrowed jar, he is now with me in my sharky office.

Strangely enough some of my colleagues both think I'm crazy and that he is ugly (!). I don't know what they are talking about.

Doesn't everyone have dead sharks in their offices?!

Goblin girl on... a new goblin shark held in aquarium!

Now is the season for goblin sharks! Before I continue to tell you about the exciting adventures of Goblin girl and Goblin boy, I just want to update you on the news that Tokyo Sea Life Park again has a young male goblin shark on display. He was caught on the 28th of March on ca 140 m of depth. The shark measures ca 1 m.

The news can be found, in Japanese, here:

http://www.tokyo-zoo.net/topic/topics_detail?kind=news&inst=&link_num=14370

Goblin girl in a goblin shark accident!

Today blood was flowing in my office today. MY blood!




(If you look carefully, you will see blood stains on my dress!)

Three years ago I sent out the - for me - earth rocking news about a live goblin shark kept in captivity in Japan, to my fellow shark friends. I immediately got the reply from my friend Guzman in the Basque country "funny you write to me now about this, because only yesterday I got a specimen from a fisherman". The shark was a caught in the Bay of Biscay on the 9th of February 2007. It's an immature male, ca 115 cm long. I replied to Guzman and told him that the shark was mine! The shark was then put in a freezer and forgotten until last summer when Guzman found it again. He put it in formalin and we started to check for transportation. Yesterday he asked me to confirm the delivery address to my office and today I got an e-mail that I should confirm to him when it arrived. Only half an hour later I was called to the reception of my office, where a tube was waiting for me!




I was of course very eager to see it. Also, it is now wrapped in formalin drenched paper and plastic so I will soon have to find a suitable container and put it in alcohol. Because of the stench, I went out on a balcony and started to unwrap it. Suddenly I felt a sting in my finger and blood was flowing. My finger had got snugged on one of the needle sharp teeth. They are just like a fishing hook. I had to stop the bleeding before I was ruining the shark so I went to the bathroom to put my finger under cold water. When I pulled off the tight rubber glove I was wearing, blood and water sprayed over the whole room, over my nice dress, me... Everywhere! I felt like Carrie from the movie with the same name. I'm lucky my colleagues are used to me, but I've never looked like this in my office before. And it's usually fish blood.





Since it wouldn't stop bleeding my colleague put on a big bandage. I wonder if I will get a scar... Maybe a first inflicted from a goblin shark? Although dead...

Ok, you are allowed to laugh now!

Goblin girl on... shark jewelry!

February is such a boring month! I have no new findings of goblin sharks to report of. And I wasn't able to go to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) shark meeting in Manila last week - I still haven't seen what the outcome of the meeting was. And since I didn't go to the Philippines I didn't get to swim with whale sharks - which I've only wanted to do since I first saw Valerie Taylor do it on TV. I was maybe 4 years old then.

But then Thomas Sabo came and brightened my day. And no, I WISH I was sponsored by them, since they're not cheap, but I'm not.

I have lots of shark jewelry (check my own page for photos) so I kind of ignored the sharks when I saw them online, but the pendant is adorable! I definitely want one of those - the one without the rocks. The shark looks very happy. And as always, a lot of attention has been made to the small details.

So far, I only bought the submarine and the carrier - like the one the diver hangs on. The sub reminds me of Alvin (can you have a sub as an idol? In that case "he" is mine!) and it brightens up my dark and snowy days.

Goblin girl on... Happy Holidays!

I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

The photo is taken in the big Siam aquarium in Bangkok, which I visited in October. I don't know how many sand tiger sharks they have there, but in this photo there are four (and one goblin shark). Maybe eight in total? Very nice indeed. I hope these sharks are good ambassadors for all sharks so people will see their beauty and continue their efforts to save sharks throughout the world.

I'm very happy that the European Union have decided on a complete ban on porbeagle next year and a 10% bycatch quota on spiny dogfish. However, this is only regulating the commercial fishery. I was very troubled to learn that a Danish sport fishery for porbeagle in the North Sea have developed during the end of summer. This has to be regulated by national laws. This and other questions will surely keep me occupied during the coming year.

It's soon season for goblin sharks... I will keep my eyes open. Let me know if you see anyone!

Goblin girl on... dissection of a greenland shark.

I know that many of you hate the sight of a dead shark. Therefore I have chosen to post my dissection of a greenland shark, Somniosus microcephalus, on my own blog. You are welcome to read it at http://blogs.myspace.com/tenguzame but I want to warn you all for some gory photos! I did this dissection to learn a bit more about the greenland shark since it is currently listed as "data deficient" on the Swedish red list, and it might even step up to "vulnerable" next year.

Goblin girl on... a mysterious fin!

Last week I got an e-mail from two sport fishermen who had been fishing on the west coast of Sweden, quite near the Norwegian border. They were fishing for Atlantic mackerel when a fin showed up. They managed to snap a few shots before the dark shadow disappeared. The question now is: what is it? Some say shark other whale... Most people doesn't even dare do hazard a guess! So... what's your opinion? Let me know!

Goblin girl on... Malibu shark attack!

The movie "Malibu shark attack" has finally been shown on the Sy fy-channel. The project started out as "Goblin shark attack" but later changed name. The "monster" in this

B-movie is a goblin shark and I'm VERY curious to see it! Has anyone seen it yet?

Read more about it on Fangoria.

Goblin girl on... Endless Ocean!

At the moment I'm looking after my three beloved godchildren while my sister got a well deserved weekend in a nice hotel with her husband. My plan was to finally get to play the Wii-game "Endless Ocean". You see, I found out that you can dive with... goblin sharks in the game! The children - twins of 6.5 years and a boy of 4.5 - found the game very boring. Lots of English text and then you are slowly swimming around. They went out to play with their friends instead, so I got the game all for myself and fell in some sort of trance... It almost felt like diving - without the pain in my ears that I always get after a few dives irl.

I've been finning around quite a good deal, but so far no goblin sharks. I need to get equipment to be able to dive deep, I guess. Now I'm waiting until I can put the children in bed so I can continue my quest!

I also have the game "Fishing Master". Somehow you will be able to see goblin sharks in the fish market, but so far I haven't found out how. Has anyone else tried these games?

Goblin girl on... new locations for goblin sharks!

I recently recieved a paper called "New Findings of Rare Fish Species from Families Mitsukurinidae (Chondrichthyes), Muraenidae, Lophiidae, Macrouridae, and Psychrolutidae (Teleostei) on Raises of the Atlantic Ocean with the Description of Gymnothorax walvisensis sp. nova" by A. M. Prokofiev and by A. M. Prokofiev and E. I. Kukuev 2009. They reported two findings of goblin sharks from the Mid-Atlantic ridge. The area is called Vavilov seamount (see pic to the left).

When I searched for an other paper they referred to in the paper mentioned above, I found an other paper called "Insufficiently studied fishes of the open ocean - Ichthyofauna of Corner Mountains and New England Seamounts" by Kukuyev from 1982. In this paper they tell about 9 goblin sharks that also were caught at the Mid-Atlantic ridge, but on a different location (see pic with small yellow dot in the middle, showing the location). The depth was 2000 - 4100 m (!). Not a diveable depth! It's always fascinating that something can live at these depths, that there is huge mountain chain that we can't see...

We have a real heat wave in Sweden at the moment. I think I will stay inside - where it is not cold, but cooler at least! - and read the new book "Oceanic Anglerfishes - extraordinary diversity in the deep sea" by Theodore W. Pietsch...

For links to summary of the first paper and the full text of the second, see my personal homepage http://blogs.myspace.com/tenguzame

Goblin girl on... something that made her sick!

I work for the government, at the Swedish Board of Fisheries. That means that I usually have to defend the fishermen and the fishing industry, but I also have certain freedom to work for the better of the environment - which sometimes means going against the fishing interest. I know that many of my "shark hugging" friends have problems with even seeing a dead shark, but I still believe that a sustainable fishery is ok. The problem is that very few - if any - fisheries on sharks are sustainable.

When I did my masters thesis on spiny dogfish at the university I even had to kill the sharks myself! It was a tough journey to make from when I was six, nearly crying my eyes out when my guppies died, not daring to even touch them if they jumped out of the aquarium, to bludgeoning my beloved sharks to death and then gut them. But you learned to do it and it was a comfort for me that the bodies went to consumption. And they had gone the same way even if I hadn't done my study.

So what makes me sick? Well, you saw earlier this week that the fate of the mantas made me really sad. Is it something that really makes me sick, it's pure waste! If you have the stomach for it, watch the video below. Then remember that this happens to a 100 million sharks every year. And still many of those sharks are taken care of in different ways. Sometimes only the fins - which is a great waste! -, sometimes the whole body. This basking shark got caught in a trawl off Iceland and the fishermen just wants to get rid of it. They mutilate it, but doesn't kill it. Such a big animal can take a month to die, lying on the sea floor, starving to death. That makes me SICK!

Goblin girl... on eating manta rays!

Of all the shark related news I get in my inbox, this article made me gasp: Manta rays next on restaurant menus as shark populations plummet . Then I started to wonder why I had such a strong reaction and the simple answer is "they are so beautiful!". How utterly banal, coming from me... One of my highest dreams is to dive with mantas. So far I've only seen them in the aquarium in Lisbon, Portugal, but ever since I first saw them in books at the age of 4, I've been devoted to them.

I once went to Norway to upgrade some electronic tracking equipment. The Norwegians have a different view, of for example whales, from many other countries. They still hunt whales and eat whale steak. My Norwegian colleagues tried to provoke me by saying "we now have so many dolphins, we should hunt them and eat them as well!". To their utter frustration I just answered "go ahead, but stay off the sharks", and then the discussion died out.

Many people will probably not share my ideas, but I have struggled so many years now for sharks, that I'm fed up with all "rescue operations" of "cute"animals. (Ok, I have a soft spot for manatees, I'll admit as much.) Tigers kill more people every year than shark does - still people fight for tigers right to existence. And the friendly dolphins who helps people back to shore... what about all the people that they might take further out from shore - who will be missed as "drowned" and never lives to tell that story?! I even know a guy who nearly got raped by a dolphin! And I've seen terrible footage of a group of dolphins killing an other dolphin from an other specie by taking turns blocking it's blow hole!

I'm not against any animals as such. I only think that it's better to work really hard for something that you believe in. Me, I'm into sharks. Sooo many others are doing their best to help other animals that are their favorites. I will certainly not go out with a harpoon myself, but I stay away from dolphin friendly tuna, since I know that it is much more dangerous to sharks and other sea creatures. The problem is to find dolphin unfriendly tuna these days, so I tend to eat tuna only once in a while.

But as you can see... even I can be banal, wanting to save something just because it's beautiful!

Goblin girl on... sharky holiday destinations!

I'm suffering from allergy, so now when it is spring time I walk around like a zombie, always tired and with a runny nose. The last days I have started to hallucinate about a long sandy beach, some palm trees and lots and lots of sharks! Somewhere in this picture I can see myself as well... The question is: where do I go?! I have a few criteria: it must be affordable for a poor swedish marine biologist, not too advanced when it comes to diving since I'm only a open water diver and there should be A LOT of sharks! Any suggestions? Anyone that needs some sharky field work done?!

This picutre is taken in paradise! Five years ago I went there on a job. We made a shark film in Rangiroa, French Polynesia. It is sometimes shown on Animal planet. "Science of shark sex" it is called. Anyway, there are lots and lots of grey reef sharks in the famous Tiputa pass, and the mating of these animals was all that this film was about. The problem for me was that the sharks gathered at 50 m and deeper. I didn't get to see any of these at all! Instead I snorkled with blacktip and whitetip reef sharks and fed some lemon sharks - which was still better than nothing.

I've been thinking of liveaboards in the Red Sea, but my ears always tends to be a problem after a few dives... The Maldives could be nice I guess, but not cheap... Any ideas of where I should go?!

Goblin girl on... her absence!

Someone - not only my fellow co-bloggers ;0) - might have wondered where I've been the last month or so. I've been attending an International Training Programme regarding Marine Management, but now I'm back home again. I will, in the next few days, try to describe what it was all about.

Goblin girl... on the plight of sharks on film.

I really liked the movie "Sharkwater". When I saw it, it felt like "Sharkwater" with it's action packed style, would appeal to a younger audience. Even I - who have always thought that Greenpeace's methods are a bit extreme - wanted to join Sea Shepherd's Captain Watson on his quest after seeing the film! Also a contributing factor why Greenpeace wasn't my cup of tea: when I was younger they mainly focused on cute animals, like seals and whales - not sharks.

Now that I've seen Joe Romerio's film clip, I'm more convinced that his style will talk more to politicians, than maybe "Sharkwater" did. "333-death of a deity" has a more suggestive - still very clear - way of hammering in it's message. And the footage is truly excellent, the music works well with the message delivered. VERY nicely done! I hope that it gets widely spread.

Goblin girl on… size!

Does size matter? At least when it comes to sharks it seems like size matters. One of the most frequently asked question I get from the public is: which is the smallest and which is the largest shark? It is quite uninteresting in one way. I mean, the maximum length for a human is 2.72 m (8 ft 11 in). How many people have been that tall? One! So, maximum length might be interesting for anecdotal reasons, but it doesn’t say much on the ”ordinary” shark. Still, it is a very common question and therefore I can’t ignore it.

The late Aidan Martin held the dwarf lantern (Etmopterus perryi) as the smallest shark. It reaches a maximum length of ca 20 cm (8 in) according to fishbase . At a size of just 19 cm one female was carrying developing embryos. After sharks reach sexual maturity the growth rate slow down considerably. Therefore the size at sexual maturity is interesting.

It was also to fishbase I went in search for the largest whale shark on record. I was a bit amazed to see a total length of 20 m (66 feet). I would have said 14 m (46 ft), and usually fishbase is quite conservative when it comes to size. So I posted my question on the three sharky mailing lists I’m a member of.

Luckily one list-member was in direct contact with Professor S.J. Joung in Taiwan - one of the authors to the fishbase referene. He assured the member that he personally witnessed this shark - and although not accurately measured, the animal was estimated by him and his scientist colleagues (Profs. Chen & Liu) at 20 m TL. The shark weighed 43 t!

The length equals that of the largest toothed whale, the sperm whale , where the bulls can grow to 20.5 m (67 ft) and weigh 57 t. Note that the whale sharks cartilage skeleton makes it much lighter, if not light!

So, does size matter? Let me know what you think!

Goblin girl on... sharky items!

It's Friday, the sun is shining outside (but it's cold) so I just want to make a "light" blog post today, not talking about threats to sharks.

If some of you have gotten curious about who "Goblin girl" is, you might have found my homepage and seen that I like to buy sharky things. I started to blog about all my things in 2007 and still find new sharky items in boxes and cupboards at home... And sometimes I buy new things. Mainly stuff I can use - not many china figurines make it into my home! The exception is goblin sharks. There I buy EVERYTHING I can find! Sometimes I'm talking artists into making stuff for me, like jewelry.

So, my latest find from Japan is trucks with sharks in tanks. They have either a goblin shark, a megamouth shark, a hammerhead or a great white. They are sold in sets of all four and I can't wait to get them!



More photos on my blog.

If you happen to find something that you think I might like OR if you live in Japan and knows how to get me the goblin shark Animal kaiser cards - drop me a line!

Editors Note: What kid/shark diver would not want that toy? Way cool GG;)

Goblin Girl on... sharks in captivity!

Ok, I guess I SHOULD comment on the EU plan of action for sharks that was released on the 5th of February, but since both my hard drive and I decided to crash on the same day (no worries, it was just a cold for me and I had a recent back up of my hard drive so I didn’t loose that much data), I haven’t had the time or energy to go through it yet. I will return to it later.

So, my blog today will be about sharks in captivity. I have to admit that I have a very split opinion about this. Or maybe not… Let’s say I have an opinion. Here it is:

I love sharks! I love to swim with them, dive with them, watch others dive with them on tv and I like to see them ”live” in aquariums. For you, it might be the last statement that is the hardest to understand (since this is a blog which I guess mainly people who likes to go diving with sharks read. I often meet people who think that it is crazy to go diving with sharks!).

All my holidays I tend to plan so that I will either be able to swim with sharks or see them in nice aquariums.

But - there is always a but - I want the sharks to be healthy in the aquariums and I like diversity above ”mass consumption”.

I realize that any aquarium most likely is too small to be an ideal place for a shark. They should be allowed to swim freely in the ocean. Still, I think that letting people see sharks with their own eyes makes them more willing to help saving them. Sharks are not as easy to love as a seal pup or a smiling dolphin (I don’t know about that really – I have loved sharks ever since I could talk, but many people tell me about their fear of sharks). You have to work harder to make people as aware and fascinated as you are yourself. One way is to show them sharks on tv, an other to have them on display in aquariums.

But not all aquariums are ok. The film clips below were shot in Denmark. So far that is my favourite shark aquarium in the world. I guess the tank is a bit crowded, but the sharks look fine. No bruises or nasty wounds, no strange swimming patterns and a high diversity. I’ve been to several aquariums in the US where there have been lots of sharks – in fact, they have been lying in droves – but just 2 or 3 species. Those aquariums have not impressed me at all – although the sharks look ok. I don’t know if it’s because we in Scandinavia have to buy all our tropical sharks and ship them for lots of money to our aquariums – and therefore we can’t afford to overcrowd our tanks - whereas aquariums in Florida just go out with some fishing gear and takes as many sharks as they want. It could be that the sharks give birth to pups in captivity as well, but monocultures are boring and makes me a bit sick.

I went to a shark aqaurium in Germany. The tank was big and not too crowded with the four sandtigers that they had, but it also contained a poor lemon shark that was swimming in circles just above the floor. You could see a circle in the sand where it had been spinning around. That was very sad to see! Especially since I have since learned that you can cure this behavior with the correct medicine!

There is an other reason why that dive below was so excellent. As a biologist I know that nature is unpredictable. You might pay a lot of money to go very far away to end up with… scrubbing the boat from fishblood and not seeing a white shark for a whole day (that happend to me in South Africa in 1995). In an aquarium I know that I will have sharks around me – for sure! Also, since I took up diving I became what we in Sweden call an “ear child”. After a few dives I get ear infections and are not allowed to dive anymore for a while. If you spend a lot of money to go on a diving holiday you don’t want to get ill! Especially not before you have seen those sharks! Luckily I can snorkel ok and many sharks prefer that, but still there are some adventures where you will have to dive to see the sharks. The hammerheads off Cocos Islands are at the moment just a dream dive for me.

So, do I think that it is ok to have any specie of sharks in captivity? No I don’t think so. Some species adopt better than others to being held in captivity. That said, given the chance, I would gladly watch the captive whale sharks in Georgia, the white sharks that they have had in Monterey and the goblin sharks in Japan. I know it’s not politically correct, but if that is my best chance to see them “live” at all, I’m in.

In the best of worlds I would just have to grab my snorkel and jump into the water and be surrounded by sharks. For me here in Scandinavia, it isn’t as easy as that.

P.S. Since over 18 years I share my life with a pet tarantula. Yup, 18 years. In the wild, she would probably not have lasted more than a few years. Now we can look forward to say, 45 years together… Sometimes the sharks might be safer from predators – like humans - in aquariums… D.S.

Shark dive 2


Shark dive 3

Goblin girl on... red list assessments.

Now I'm back at home after a meeting with my fellow "fish geeks"- or as we more officially are called "the expertgroup on fishes". We are 7-8 biologists who currently works on an update of the Swedish red list for 2010. There are national red lists around the world as well as a global red list following guidelines from IUCN (= the International Union for Conservation of Nature). The red list list both commercial and non commercial species and the system is designed to determine the relative risk of extinction.

I've been a member since before the update in 2005 and I must say that it isn't easy to do these assessments. We use all data we can find from surveys, landing data from fisheries and other sources, but the red list works best for animals on the savannah! We can't say that there are exactly 253641 spiny dogfish left in our waters and that last year it was 398526. We are not even totally sure that there is just one population of spiny dogfish in the NE Atlantic! Still, the spiny dogfish is one of the few elasmobranch species that we at least have SOME data on. For many of the skates and rays we don't have a clue of age for sexual maturity (which means that we don't know the generation time which is an important factor in the assessment) and we lack landing data specified down to species. All we know is that they are probably late in getting in mature and long lived.

Ever since I made my masters thesis on spiny dogfish (back in 1997) I have tried to make my colleagues set a quota on it in our waters. I mean, an animal that is 12 - 14 years old when it becomes sexual mature and that carries it's pups for 18-20 months (!), can't possibly tolerate a heavy fishing pressure. But since we are part of the European community, we have had to wait until EU finally set a - much to high - quota in 2007. In 2003 came a report most commonly referred to as DELASS (=Development of Elasmobranch Assessments). After having analyzed data and made several models, the conclusion of the report was that in 25 years the population of spiny dogfish in the NE Atlantic might have been fished down with as much as 95-98 %!

With this knowledge, the spiny dogfish was listed as EN (endangerd) on Swedens red list for 2005. The IUCN shark specialist group held a workshop for the NE Atlantic elasmobranchs in 2006 where spiny dogfish got listed under the highest criteria CR (critically endangered). (See figure below for explantions.)



We do these assessments to point out to those responsible that action needs to be taken, but it's not legally binding. The ideal situation is that the red list is blank - that all species are sustainably exploited or not threatend by habitat destruction etc. For some species, the situation is getting better after their debut on the red list, but for sharks action is very slow. Therefore we need people like you, reading this, to take action. Sign that petition, send an e-mail to that shop selling shark products or to a politician that has some power or make an activity celebrating the International year of the shark. Tell everyone that it's not ok to exterminate the sharks!


I'm VERY sad to say that it seems like the spiny dogfish will be listed on CR on the Swedish redlist for 2010. I've done everything I could to change it's dire situation. And it wasn't enough!