Tiger Rip Fest Nom, Nom, Nom

A pack of tiger sharks take turns to attack the carcass of a dead humpback whale in Onion Bay on Palm Island, near Townsville. The sharks, some up to a 5m in length, stick their snouts out of the water to rip the blubber off the carcass.

Yes we love this video, watching sharks do what they do "au naturel" is a sight to behold.

Behold:

Cabo san Lucas Shark Munch 2011

Pete Thomas has the scoop on a 300 pound sushi shark buffet in Cabo this week.

Seeing shark "on predation" is perhaps one of the most awe inspiring moments you can witness, for Tyson Seeliger of Houston, Texas, aboard the Great Escape Jr, this event was one of a kind.

"This tuna never dove but stayed up on the surface the whole time," Tracy Ehrenberg, the Pisces general manager, said in a report posted on the company blog. "After another two hours they had the fish 20 feet from the boat, when it was attacked by four pilot [or silky] sharks. They ripped into it, devouring it in large bites, as Tyson frantically reeled as fast as he could to try to save his sushi."

Mako on Predation - Sweet

Call us old school but we just love a good predation image when it comes to sharks.

Who doesn't?

Diver and underwater photographer Al McGlashin got the surprise of his life yesterday off Port Stephens, Australia when a sizable Mako blasted past him to seize a striped marlin about to be released during a fishing tournament.

Needles to say the animal was not released for reasons that will quickly become self evident.

Al stayed in the water with the shark and shot an entire series - nicely done sir.

Want to see more?

Yeah we knew you would.

Another Tiger taken in Bahamas - Media Field Day

The sad news of another Tiger shark sport caught in Bahamian waters has turned up a grim discovery and mystery as human remains are found inside:

Coral Harbour Base, 04 September 2010 (RBDF) :

Crew members of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Enduring Friendship vessel EF-28 boarded and searched a 30 foot Bahamian registered fishing vessel shortly after 11:00 a.m. this morning, some 35 miles south of New Providence.

The search revealed the badly decomposed parts of what is believed to be human remains. The 3 Bahamian fishermen aboard reported that the 12 foot tiger shark they had captured had regurgitated the parts.

The fishing vessel accompanied the EF 28 back to Coral Harbour Base where the predator was dissected and other body parts were discovered. Police were on hand to conduct interviews and collect samples for further processing.

Editors Note: Nothing good for Tigers in the region can come of this grim discovery.

Law of Attraction - Baited Cams

Currently being passed around the blue blogs some interesting research video from Australia:

Baited Remote Underwater Video Stations (BRUVS) have been developed by AIMS scientists in order to monitor the vast areas of deeper inter-reef and shelf habitats inaccessible to research divers so that important bioregions there can be included in marine protected areas.

BRUVS consist of tourist-grade “HandiCam” video cameras in simple underwater housings made of PVC sewer pipe and acrylic, with a canister of minced pilchards on the end of a bait arm in the field of view. The housings are held in steel frames, and are deployed in strings of four to six under separate ropes and floats, to be picked up after one or two hours filming at the seabed.

Baited videos record species attracted to the bait plume or camera station, species attracted to the commotion caused by feeding and aggregation at the station, species occupying territories within the field of view of the camera, and species indifferent to the station but present in or passing through the field of view during the deployment.

The range of fish, sharks, rays, sea snakes and other animals sighted on BRUVS tapes has been remarkable – over 300 species to date, from 3cm leatherjackets to 3m hammerhead sharks.

Casting White Sharks as Villians...Again

We have been keeping tabs on a new production in the works called The Reef.

This mornings news from Australia confirms suspicions that another "white shark attack film" is in the offing, just in time for 2010:

AN overturned hull is causing some consternation near Shelly Beach but the person most affected by the makeshift shipwreck is a movie character. Thankfully.

The character shall remain nameless. Best to say he or she meets a “grisly demise” in the waters of Hervey Bay this week and a great white shark is probably involved at some level.

Complete Story

Shark Science - Run Over by Media

Last week we posted the Suns media hit on shark feeding behavior. The article likened all sharks on a general level to London's infamous "Jack the Ripper".

Typical shark media for the mainstream folks who often go to great lengths to instill a fear of sharks with the public.

What was not mentioned in our blog post was the origin of this media hit, a research paper by University of Miami's Neil Hammerschlag.

Here was the email we got today from Neil explaining how his research paper became the "shark topic de jour" this week:

Hi All,

This study is getting a lot of attention; however it is as misunderstood as sharks. Some media are sensationalizing/twisting the results of the study to sell papers. I hope readers will be more critical and seek out the real scientific paper.

In this study, a technique called geographic profiling (originally developed as a criminal investigation tool) was applied to analyze patterns of white shark predation on seals at Seal Island, in False Bay, South Africa.

Sharks hunt to eat. They are predators and seals are their prey. Serial killers have mental disorders and such disorders cannot be applied to animals. The study does not characterize sharks as serial killers in anyway, just that white sharks are more complex than we originally thought.

Sharks are constantly swimming, and unlike other animals they do not have the equivalent of a den, nest, or burrow. Therefore, establishing the existence (including location, size, and shape) of a search base or “centre of gravity” for a search pattern could provide important insight into their hunting behavior.

By applying geographic profiling, the study found that sharks are not mindless killers, but are in fact using sophisticated hunting strategies. The study found that sharks appeared to be hunting in an optimal manner geospatially. Sharks processed a well-defined anchor point or search base, but not where the chances of prey interception were greatest. This location may therefore represent a balance of prey detection, capture rates, and inter-shark competition.

The study also found that smaller sharks had more dispersed prey search patterns and lower kill success rates than larger sharks. This could mean that white sharks refine their search patterns with experience and learn to concentrate hunting efforts in locations with the highest probability of successful prey capture. It might also be that larger sharks competitively exclude smaller sharks from the best hunting areas.

The most important thing is conservation of these magnificent animals.

If you read the study published online today in the Journal of Zoology, I am sure you will find it very interesting.

For a better news story please visit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8110000/8110246.stm

--

Neil Hammerschlag
University of Miami
Ph.D. Candidate, Marine Biology & Fisheries
Co-Director, South Florida Student Shark Program (SFSSP)
Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science (RSMAS)
4600 Rickenbacker Cswy, Miami, Florida, 33149

E-mail: nhammerschlag@rsmas.miami.edu
O: 305.421.4356 F: 305.421.4600 C: 954.815.0920