Mako or White?

[Davy Holt]

Hiya,

posted by Sandtiger over on WSF :


Basking shark breaching off the coast of Ireland.
Dr. Ken Waterson took this photo in 1992.

[img]http://www.pelagic.org/pics/image_lib/89.jpg[/img]

[kieran]

Hi

We had one perhaps 15 feet off Keem Beach on Achill in April during the warm spell, so they have been around and very close to shore early in the season. Do they also breach in order to try to dislodge parasites?

FWIW

[Davy Holt]

Hiya,

. Do they also breach in order to try to dislodge parasites?

I'm not really sure, from what I can gather it's only sub adults that tend to breach so it would think it unlikely that they are trying to dislodge parasites as the parasites would affect all sizes of the sharks.

I may very well be wrong though :)

[Drew]

lol... I've been on WSF, Davy's never wrong! :lol:

[PanamaJack]

Hiya,

. Do they also breach in order to try to dislodge parasites?

I'm not really sure, from what I can gather it's only sub adults that tend to breach so it would think it unlikely that they are trying to dislodge parasites as the parasites would affect all sizes of the sharks.

I may very well be wrong though :)

Like Davy that's all I can suggest. Athough this reference - [url]http://www.cornishworldmagazine.co.uk/content/view/30/93/[/url] and it's one of not too many on the Web, suggested it occured when the fish were aggregated together.

Dolphins and seals are usually, but not always, seen off our coast in small groups or singly; a large number makes a big impression. So it is with sharks, especially when they are spread over a wide area. A few days after my close encounter in the cove south of Land’s End, there were 53 feeding on the surface off Pendeen Watch, in a wide arc stretching westwards to Botallack Head and eastwards to Gurnards head. The water that day looked thick and oily as it does sometimes in mid summer, probably due to the richness of the plankton. Some were close inshore, others several miles out. Some were in clusters of between five and 10, others on their own. It was a blue arena of sea and sky where black fins cut sharply into our world of air and light from their hidden world below. Many were between five and eight metres long, but a few were under three metres. It was an unforgettable sight.

Now and again there was a big white splash, and I mean big - far bigger than that resulting from a gannet dive or a dolphin jump. Some people don’t believe that sharks breach, jump out of the water, and I didn’t for a while; it seemed like a fishermen’s tale until one day through my telescope I saw a massive body, clearly that of a shark, lurch out of the water and throw itself over backwards. Sometimes they breach twice or even three times in succession, and the best way to see it is to look carefully at the same spot through binoculars and hope that you may catch it again. The large size, the impression of black and white, the big fins, and the power of the leap are spectacular, and it’s not hard to see why sometimes some people believe they are seeing Killer Whales or Orcas. Why do they breach? Nobody knows – but suggestions are that they are ridding themselves of parasites or possibly communicating in a primitive way. They are fish and cannot have the sophisticated social life of a dolphin or whale.

But to emphasise it's only observations by one individual about one such sighting.

How about this for real infestation though? A Bob Marley look-alike resplendent with Rastafarian 'locks'! [url]http://www.big-game-board.info/attachment.php?attachmentid=851[/url] and [url]http://www.big-game-board.info/attachment.php?attachmentid=869[/url].

[Rockhopper]

Found this very good Shark site..... http://www.elasmodiver.com/ some great photos and good information too.

Tom.