Hello and welcome back Shark. Here's to another episode of
Deep Dives with Sharks. My name is Alex and I'm the host
of this thing. And if you're new to the
podcast, welcome. We like to talk about sharks and
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ways to see what we can do to make those happen.
I do appreciate all the work that she's been doing and also
need to give her a shout out because she did get these notes
to me a few weeks ago and I did not plan on disappearing.
So I do appreciate all the help that she has given and will
continue to do. But please feel free to send any
questions, comments, or any shark related content to the
social media or in the comments. And let me know if you have any
interactions or anything like that in the aquarium or in the
wild you want to share. I'll be happy to share them on
the next episode as well. I do appreciate how much
everyone has been active in the comments and on social media.
I've gotten lots of LED Ms. as always.
I do think I saw one of the funniest comments ever.
Someone asked when the next episode be coming out and the
response quite literally just said get some patience diggity
dog and that was incredibly funny to me.
I do appreciate checking in to see when the next episode will
be as well because once again I did not plan on disappearing and
it just made me laugh to see someone replied so quickly.
But I do also appreciate everyone that's been helping
each other out in the comments as well.
So of course whenever anyone asks for a shark that has
already been covered, a lot of you have been quick to get to
the comments and let them know which episode that is in.
In a very nice and respectful way, which I genuinely do
appreciate. But today's shark is powerful,
misunderstood, oddly named and a near threatened species.
It is the poor Beagle. I know you're probably wondering
why is it called a poor Beagle shark?
Well that's an excellent question and honestly no one
fully agrees. The name Poor Beagle may come
from porpoise due to the shark's body shape or what they thought
their diet was, and Beagle for its dog like hunting style.
Others think it is a mash up of words that evolved over time
through fisherman slang. Either way, it's one of those
shark names that sounds adorable and threatening at the same
time. They sound like they'll be there
to give you a nice cuddle, but they also might stab you.
You don't know. Poor Beagles closely resemble
their famous relatives, the Great White and Salmon shark.
They look derpier or like they're always giving you the
puppy dog eyes. They've got that classic
mackerel shark look, a conical snout, Crescent shaped tail and
a sleek torpedo like body built for speed.
They're usually dark Gray on top with a pale underside, which is
classic shark camouflage that counter shading there.
One key identifying feature though is the white or light
Gray rear tip of the dorsal fin, which many sharks don't have.
They can grow up to 12 feet long and weigh about 500 lbs.
So not small, but still smaller than their celebrity cousin, the
Great white. Here's where poor beagles get
especially cool, literally and biologically.
Like other sharks in their family, poor beagles can raise
their body temperature up to 20°F above the surrounding
water. This means while everything else
is freezing, they're cruising around like, you know, that's
fine. This adaption lets them thrive
in cold waters, making them one of the oceans elite cold water
predators. Basically, they brought their
own heater. Humans do something similar.
We're able to go into cold environments because of our warm
blood and we don't instantly freeze.
But we've all heard of friends who have or people on the
Internet or anything like that who have left birds or reptiles
too close to the the outdoors when it's cold.
And unfortunately that animal cannot handle it.
And that's about it. So yeah, humans are able to do
this because if I have cold weather, some sharks can, others
cannot. Poor beagles are one of the ones
that can go into cold water, and they'll be just fine.
Now in the Northern Hemisphere, they're found only in the
Atlantic Ocean, ranging from New Jersey and Canada all the way to
Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and even the Mediterranean.
In the Southern Hemisphere, they're circum global, swimming
in a band between 30 and 60° S latitude, so they only stay
right about there. Now, this geographic separation
is important because it distinguishes them from their
close relative, this salmon shark, which only lives in the
North Pacific. Poor beagles can be found from
the surface down to nearly 2350 feet.
And while they prefer open ocean, they can also hang out in
coastal waters. They've even been caught in
brackish estuaries, though they don't enter freshwater.
But this is interesting because many sharks won't travel into
brackish estuaries. So I'm wondering if they're
going to do something similar evolutionarily to like what the
bull shark did, which is where they're able to move more into
freshwater. But I don't think we'd see that
really in our lifetime. That'll probably be hundreds of
years down the line if anything. I could be wrong.
It might happen tomorrow. We'll find out now.
Despite their size and power, poor beagles are not aggressive
towards human. The International Shark Attack
File lists only a handful of unprovoked attacks ever, both
fatal. Sorry, both non fatal and
involving divers who got too close or bites to fishermen
handling the shark. Which in case you guys did not
realize, the international shark attack file doesn't just count
provoked or unprovoked bites, it counts them both.
So even if someone's like punching a shark for no reason
and it bites them, you're in the file.
Congratulations, all those people that have messed with
nurse sharks that have done nothing but just sit there and
then they get bit. Congrats, you're in the file,
but also the surfer who was just hanging out fell in the water
and got bit unprovoked. You're also in the file.
So it just keeps track of all the bites, does it?
If you're in the file there, it doesn't say that you're doing
anything wrong. You're just you got bit by a
shark. They've even been filmed making
fast passes at divers on oil platforms in the North Sea
without attacking. This behavior is thought to be
exploratory or defensive. Basically the shark equivalent
of saying, what's this thing in front of me?
It's kind of the same thing. If weird things popped up in
your living room, once again, you'd you'd kind of question
what it is and what you can do to help it, why it's in your
house. They're kind of doing the same
thing, but they don't speak human languages now.
Port beagles migrate seasonally, likely following temperature
gradients, rather than prey alone.
They also segregate by size and sex, and mature females often
separate from males and juveniles, which may help with
reducing unwanted mating, protecting newborns from
cannibalism, and keeping breeding seasonal and efficient.
Which is honestly incredibly smart planning.
It's better than some humans do, honestly.
I mean some people just be eating babies out here.
That's a whole joke. No I'm kidding, but don't eat
babies anyway. Historically, poor beagles were
considered a nuisance because they damaged fishing gear when
populations were higher. That nuisance status didn't
exactly help when fishing industrial fishing ramped up by
the mid 20th century. Poor beagles were heavily
overfished, especially by Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
Catches peaked in 1947 and declined rapidly after that.
When North Atlantic stocks collapsed, fisheries shifted
locations and eventually to other species.
Today, port beagles are protected in US waters.
They are regulated in Europe. They're catch and release only
in Canada, but they are still poorly regulated in the Southern
hemisphere. And we do see that with many
sharks, especially around South America.
I will say Australia has been one that does a lot for shark
conservation, but then you also have certain parts of Asia that
haven't as well. And then there's other parts of
Africa that have done a lot and some that have not too.
But some countries like Brazil have also put protections on
certain sharks. I believe Ecuador has
protections all around the Galapagos.
I believe Australia has put many as well as South Africa has put
many out there. And if I did not mention your
country and you do know of protections that you have in
your water and you're in the Southern hemisphere, please feel
free to let me know because I'm always trying to see what other
ways we are protecting sharks around the world.
So that's really cool. But they're also a major bycatch
species, especially in long line fisheries, and are often
harvested for meat oil, fish meal, and fins, which fish meal
is like the stupidest thing to use them for.
But anyway, the poor Beagle is listed by the ICUN as near
threatened globally but vulnerable in the Northeast
Atlantic. So a little bit different
depending on the hemisphere. Now catch rates of mature poor
beagles have dropped to about 10% of historical levels and
recovery is slow because they grow slowly and reproduce later
in life. In 1997, global reported catch
was 1736 tons, while the estimated sustainable yield is
only about 1000 tons. In other words, we're still
taking more than the population can handle.
So not great. Thankfully, this is one of the
closer numbers, thankfully, that that we've seen, but it still is
not great and there still is more to be done to help protect
this population, which, as you will see later, all shark
populations are always battling. But that is of course, what we
have for the poor Beagle for this episode.
If you guys feel like we missed anything or if there's anything
you'd like to add in, please share it in the comments
anywhere else that you can. And I will try to update that in
correction corner. But going on to safety now,
we're going to be looking at an effective modern tools in ocean
safety, specifically smart boys and drone surveillance.
Now, smart buoys are floating monitor systems placed offshore
that detect tagged sharks as they pass through an area.
When A tag shark swims nearby, the buoy logs the detection and
can alert beach officials in real time.
Some systems even share this information with the public
through apps or websites. This means beaches can make
temporary targeted decisions, like clearing the water for a
short time rather than shutting everything down or using harmful
methods. Drones have become one of the
most powerful shark safety tools in recent years.
From the air, drones can spot sharks before swimmers even see
them, especially in Clearwater. That is different from
Clearwater, FL, although they can also use it there if they
want. Now lifeguards and beach patrols
can monitor large areas quickly and respond immediately if a
shark is moving close to people. This allows for early warnings,
calm evacuations, and rapid reopenings once the shark moves
on because most sharks are just passing through, not sticking
around for lunch. Also, drones don't disturb
sharks, which is a huge win for conservation.
Both smart buoys and drones shift shark safety from reaction
to prevention. Instead of waiting for an
incident, they're using science and technology to reduce risk to
swimmers, protect sharks from unnecessary harm, and replaced
fear based responses with informed ones.
The cool thing is I did get to hear, I believe it was Doctor
Chris Lowe give a talk on this shark Khan when I went not last
year, but the year before. And it was really neat to see
because he is also the head of the California State University
Shark Lab in Long Beach. I believe it was.
But it was cool because he got to show us real time data that
they were collecting as we were in his speech.
But also he showed a speed up version of a day's worth of data
that they had collected by creating essentially a matrix of
these buoys not too far off of the shore.
And they were able to show where sharks were going through.
And of course, having it set up like that, they also were able
to collect a lot more data, including about size of the
shark, how deep it was in the water, what its body temperature
was, a lot of different things like that.
But it was also easier to get those pieces of data when they
were using things that they were going to recover at the end of
the day versus different buoys that are supposed to be out
there for a while. They can record a little bit
less, but it's really cool to see because things like this, as
already stated, do help to be more preventative than they are
reactionary. We're not waiting for someone to
get bit. We're not waiting for harm to
happen. And most sharks are there.
Just try to figure out what's going on, what's all the
commotion. So they're not there to get a
meal or anything like that anyway.
So it is nice to be able to like, hey, let's just get people
out the water real quick because the safest place to be at the
beach if you're afraid of getting bit by a shark is going
to be on the sand. It's not going to be in the
water. Mind you, this is also coming
from someone who spends the majority of their time at the
beach in the water, and I've never been bit.
A lot of my friends love going to the beach as well.
I don't know any of them that have been bit.
Of course, we've heard of people being bit, but the amount of
folks that go to the beach and don't get bit, it's still a very
high number. But it's really cool to see
these things in practice, especially as there are many
other options that are much more violent, much more impactful and
not in a good way, as we will also discuss in a little bit as
well. But it is good to see ways that
are going to prevent, that won't disturb the sharks, will only
minorly inconvenience some beachgoers.
But I think being bit would inconvenience them a lot more.
So I do, I'm really curious to see what this is going to do in
the future. And I'm looking forward to
seeing how they will improve it because of course, we're always
improving things. But moving on to the news, as I
was just talking about the many methods that can be used, some
are not always effective. And the first one we've got
comes from the Guardian, and that is shark culls brought in
after fatal attack causes division and anger in New
Caledonia. So a little bit of background
here. Man in New Caledonia was using a
wing foil which is like a windsurfing board but it has
this little thing underneath that when you pump your legs it
can propel the board forward as well.
And he was attacked while on this board by a 3M tiger shark
and unfortunately it was a fatal incident and he lost his life.
Now the article does not go into great detail about the incident,
but New Caledonia decided a shark hull, which is where you
capture and kill many sharks from February 28th until
yesterday, March 4th would be the best way to go about this.
Now clearly this irritated environmentalist including
members of the Ensemble Por La Planet, I don't know if I
pronounce that properly. It is French who went to court
regarding this shark culling, stating that it is doing nothing
to improve safety, only disturb the environment.
Now New Caledonia did try a shark hull back in 2013 that
yielded over 100 tiger and bull sharks which once again are
their targets during this call and they are releasing
individuals that are under 2.1 meters.
But that still adds a lot of stress to the individual and can
lead to their death anyway, especially if they aren't fully
grown and they are just a juvenile.
Now. This feels very we've gone into
their home and are now mad at them for being there.
Coded jaws, coded, whatever you want to call it coded.
The call didn't help in 2023, and they're now in a legal
battle to see if they're allowed to keep up the call at this
point. But we're here three years later
targeting the same species after another bite.
So clearly the first one didn't work.
Why are we killing more sharks? It makes no sense to me.
I understand we want to be protective and we want to help
save human lives, but killing animals isn't going to do that.
Like there, there's certain times that that is the best case
in this one, just grabbing random sharks in the water and
killing them. It's not it's not the move.
But anyway, the next one that we have is that the shark
mysteriously found 12 miles inland in Australia and this was
reported by the surfer. Over the past few months, Sydney
has seen an uptick in bull shark bites due to weather changes.
Heavy rains have caused bull sharks to hang out in odd
places. But this shark was found in an
extremely odd place, which was out of the water on a brick
pavement 12 miles inland from the water.
So clearly, this bull shark isn't an epaulette shark that
can walk on land. But even if it was, epaulette
sharks can't walk that far. They've got a few yards, maybe a
few dozen at the most, but they aren't travelling miles inland.
Officials are looking into what could have brought this shark to
Kellyville, but they're also taking time to alert swimmers
and beachgoers about the warning systems in place and to follow
posted instructions. They do ask that if your beach
is closed due to weather, shark activity or water conditions, we
ask that swimmers stay out of the water for their own safety.
They also noted to avoid any murky water, as bull sharks are
more likely to bite in unclear conditions.
This is also how most humans work.
If things aren't very clear and we're confused, we tend to act
out. All in all, just keep an eye
out. Don't bring a shark into your
backyard and listen to posted warnings regarding beach safety.
So this is what we have for that episode.
I want to thank you all for listening once again.
Comment or DM any shark encounters and experiences.
I may just share some of them at the start or end of the episode,
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in the next one.