We want to remind everyone that “Monster Hammerhead” airs tonight on Discovery channel at 10 PM EST! Initial impressions from the trailer: the sharks look great, the footage is top-notch. Watch it for that, if anything. In the winter time, weve swam with these graceful sharks multiple days a week and havent felt threatened in the least. Discovery may have their own story line: discovery/tv-shows/shark-week/?AID=11732244&PID=6154686&SID=8yx3f8zivalp&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fdiscovery%2Ftv-shows%2Fshark-week%2F%23%21%2Fmon%2Fmonster-hammerhead&ecid=AFF-7975437&pa=affcj&PCID=2470763#!/mon/monster-hammerhead Here’s a rundown of the hammerhead species we see in Bimini, one which we are trying desperately to learn more about: Sphyrna mokarran, commonly known as the great hammerhead, is the biggest of the Sphyrnidae family, which includes scalloped, smooth, bonnethead sharks, and more. A fully grown female can measure upwards of 6 meters (~19.5 feet) total length, but this isnt common. Males run a bit smaller. Great hammers exist circumtropically and are pelagic (migratory), so if you read last night’s post, you can bet they have stiff, plesodic pectoral fins to streamline their swimming efforts. Their large, sickle-shaped dorsal fins are worth noting as well, making them heavily sought after in the fin trade. Great hammers also have the highest brain to body mass ratio of any shark species we know. There is still much more to learn about them--their populations, migrations patterns, life histories, preferred nursery grounds--in order to best inform societal conservation efforts. At the same time, this is a highly sensitive species, showing over 90% at-vessel mortality when caught. (aquaticcommons.org/13502/1/MorganBurgess_GCFI_Pelagics.pdf) It’s tough to perform research on a species if its individuals die from the stress of capture... Fortunately, with long breath holds, we’ve been able to free-dive and pole-tag 15 individual great hammerheads with acoustic-transmitters since January this year. This is the least invasive method we know. The results are still preliminary, but we’ve received pings from a tagged hammer as far north as Virginia! With more funding and time, we hope to deploy an increasing amount of transmitters in the upcoming winter. If you’re in a generous mood, any and all contributions are more than welcome: biminisharklab/support/donate. It’s Hammer Time! Photos taken by CJ Crooks Map photographed from “Sharks of the World” by David Ebert et. al
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:35:43 +0000
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