North Carolina Shark Round-up

In case you think I’ve been too wrapped up in my old home’s sharks, here’s a recap of the latest shark news from my new home.  North Carolina is plenty sharky, even if Jaws itself only makes rare appearances.

The biggest recent local shark news is that a 6-year-old girl was bitten in Ocracoke.  She’s doing well now, and reportedly says she likes dolphins better than sharks.  From the video, it sounds like the species involved was likely a blacktip or spinner, similar to the semi-regular shark bites in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  Glad to see she’s recovering well, and I hope this doesn’t keep her out of the water for long.

Warmer than average waters off of North Carolina this year have brought some new neighbors to the famous sand tiger sharks of the Papoose, a well-known wreck and dive site off of Morehead City.  Caribbean reef sharks, a species that usually doesn’t stray north of Florida, have been filmed congregating in large numbers around the wreck.  You know, I’ve been meaning to break in this new wetsuit…

In less fortunate news, a 5 1/2 foot sand tiger shark was pulled out of the water on the beach at Kitty Hawk in the Outer Banks.  It seems to have been in rough shape and died on the beach, apparently from injuries related to being hooked.  Even though sand tigers are a pretty hardy species when it comes to foul hooking, sadly mortality does happen.

In the more southern Carolina, the shark tagging program at the SCDNR (which I’ve… ahem… tagged along with) has found what may be the oldest bonnethead shark on record at 17 years of age.  This is 5 years older than the previously calculated maximum age.

Plenty of sharks here in the Carolinas.  As always, check out ye olde Twitter feed to catch these links as I find them.

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