Sorry guys, I just couldn't help myself when I read this article. Whites typically are in colder waters, but they have been seen in the warmer waters off Hawai'i and the Florida Keys every so often. This goes to show maybe that they are not mindless...

Great white shark spotted off Hale'iwa

Thanks for sharing Shark!

I think there's mention of Great Whites cruising to Hawaii from the Farallones off San Francisco in Susan Casey's "The Devil's Teeth". Don't quote me on that though, but they sure do cover a lot of ground when they want to. From reading the book, that 18-20 foot female could be one of the "sisterhood" that Casey writes about, the enormous females that dwarf all other Great Whites.

I love sharks but I'd prefer not to swim with a Great White! That Hall bloke should probably buy himself a lottery ticket!

Cheers

Andy

As you may be able to see by my username, I have a passion for sharks! I want to swim with whites, tigers, blues, porbeagles...you name it and I would love to swim with it! That sounds like an interesting book, is it fiction or based off of fact? I might pick it up either way. Thanks!

G'day Shark

I wouldn't have guessed you were into sharks unless you told me! LOL, just kidding. They're fascinating, aren't they? So perfectly adapted and in tune with their environment. Doen here in Australia, Western Australia to be exact, our Customs and Navy have been battling to stop the illegal fishing boats from Inodnesia that come down and poach shrks, turtles and everything in between. They target sharks for their fins and we've seen photos in the papers and on the news of definned sharks, still living, being thrown back into the ocean. Totally barbaric and there has been a huge uproar about it here. It's a large expanse of ocean (NW of Australia) but we've got good resources to cover it. However, the fishing boats are small and sneaky, even some Aboriginal communities have spotted fishermen on reefs stealing trocchus shells etc and reported them. Boats seized, and there's a lot of them, are burned and the crew detained.

On to better and happier stuff, "The Devil's Teeth" by Susan Casey is fact and deals with the Great White research project conducted from The Farallone Islands about 40 nm off San Francisco. It is brilliant, you'll love it, most of the sharks have names as they return year after year. Here's the link on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080507581...=books&v=glance

Hope it works.

Cheers beer:

Andy

Thanks so much! I agree with the way everyone is up in arms about finning. I think it sick. How could anyone do that to a creature??

I'll check out the book (I've already bought a copy at amazon!). Thanks!!!

Erica if you go to swin with the sharks get lots of insurance. I think they are really amazing animals and have managed to surive all the changes for a million years but I can't see myself as a side dish for one of them. There's not enough of me for an entre. :lol: :lol:

Oh my :blink: . I've snorkeled at Hale'iwa before, beautiful marine life there snor: . I would love to swim with sharks...as long as i KNEW they were there yike: . I was watching something on tv the other day(i think it was National Geographic) that showed a spot off the Cape of Good Hope where Great White's, seals, whale's, and crazy little seagulls they call Commacozies(don't know how to spell it :unsure: ), gather all in the same spot at the same time. Its CRAZY:wacko:!!! The seagulls DIVE deep into the water to get the fish. But the sharks...they jump OUT of the water and eat the seals....JUMP!!! And I mean all the way out of the water...all 16 feet of them!!! As for the whales... I think they're just there to hang out. w:

Give this small photo album a go for some "breaching" sharks. Not even low flying aircraft are safe....LOL!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...rks1/index.html

50 messages....woohoo!

Cheers beer:

Andy

I saw that show Heather. It was cool to watch them jump out of the water. :lol:

I love the pictures you sent Andy!! They were beautiful!! I love the pne off of Capetown!! I've seen the shark patting before. It was done a bit differently though. It seems if you touch a great white on the snout, when it comes out of the water, it relaxes and just kind of glides back down beneath the surface. I saw a guy cut his hand pretty darn badly on a mistake though. All he did was "gently" rake his hand across a few teeth and man you should have seen the damage!!

Don't seals swim in the water? Why would the shark have to jump into the air?

Haha, on the Simpsons episode where Lisa becomes a vegetarian, her class watches a movie that tries to explain how the natural order of things is for one animal to eat another and they show a shark jump up and eat a gorilla that is hanging down from a tree over the water. I guess it's more accurate than I thought! :lol:

Haha! Good point, but it does make a lot of sense. Sharks are hunters (I guess you all know that!) Due to their make-up and their coloration (dark on top and light on bottom) they hunt from underneath their prey since it is harder from the seal to see them coming from the dark depths. What they do is they get a nice little head start using powerful strokes to surprise the unknowing seal and due to the amount of speed of the attack, they jump right out of the water in the process. It is amazing to see. If you want to learn more you can rent Pacific Jaws or Air Jaws. Air Jaws deals with a married couple out of South Africa (Chris and Monique Fallows) who study these great whites that leap out of the water for their prey. Their website is down right now...but when they are back up I'll give you a link.

Ahh, I see, it's like a bass hitting a jitterbug. Thanks for the clarification and the recommended viewing, Erica!

I think they use a towed seal silhouette don't they Erica? Or was that how the famous breaching photos came about a few years ago?

We had a GW have a go at a diver about 3 km off Perth, where I live on Sunday. He was wearing a camo wetsuit (not terribly bright IMHO). 3m shark got his elbow and dragged him a couple of metres but his spear gun took most of the brunt of the impact. The guy's okay, one of his dive buddies arrived on scene with a "Shark Shield" and the GW headed off. Needless to say, the distributor of the Shark Shield in South Oz, sold out on Monday.

The thing that got me about the guy's story was that he said that when he was hiding in the reef, the shark would disappear into the gloom and then reappear behind him! They're just so adapted to their environment, ultimate hunters.

Cheers

Andy beer:

YIKES!!!...........So Erica...What is your favorite kind of shark???

A live one!!!

Heather, that's like asking what someones favorite Cussler book is!!! I love them all for so many reasons, but my favorites...

Great White (Carcharodon carcharias - White sharks, white pointers, white death... :lol: )
Porbeagle (lamna nassus)
Tiger (Galeocerdo cuvier)
Lemon (Negaprion brevirostris)
Bull (Carcharhinus leucas)
Thresher (Alopias vulpinus)
(Long fin/short fin)Mako (Isurus paucus/Isurus oxyrinchus)

I recently discovered the Salmon Shark which is closely related to the GW. Well, I didn't discover it as in found a new species, lol, but you know what I mean! Closely related to the GW, I at first mistook them for small GWs. Very cool.

Erica, one of the guys in The Devil's Teeth, during the "off" season at the Farallones, would head off and study the Salmon Sharks off Alaska (I think). Now there's a cool job!

Cheers beer:

Andy

HAHA! :lol: Sorry :P

We just had a 6 metre shark spotted 200 metres off a beach. They're saying it was either a Tiger or a GW, my bet is a big female GW. Longer and heavier than the family car! The guy in the spotter plane who spotted it at first thought it was a small whale!

Cheers beer:

Andy

That's a big shark. yike:

The Salmon Shark is kind of like an offshoot of the Porbeagle shark, both of which are in the Lamnidae family, the mackerel sharks (which consists of the White shark, the longfin and shortfin mako, the porbeagle and the salmon sharks). The Salmon shark(Lamna ditropis) is the most northern of it's family and it has the double keel on the tail which it only shares with the porbeagle. The Salmon shark inhabits the Pacific and the porbeagle inhabits the Atlantic. They are beautiful creatures!

Heres a picture of a salmon shark...

Kinda looks like every other shark I've ever seen ( :lol: ), but I do think they are beautiful. You must have been very traumatized in Pacific Vortex when they describe what Barf the Magic Dragon can do. :blink:

Bla! :o Who wouldn't be traumatized. ^_^

I agree that sharks are amazing, and in my opinion they don't get the attention they deserve. On the other hand, while I would love to see one in its natural environment I would not be swim out and pet one. I would like to keep all my body parts. :lol: I'm not nearly lucky enough to get away unscathed. :P It would be like patting a hungry lion on its head and saying good kitty.

I was a bit upset with the hammerhead shark and barf.... :mellow: Poor thing!! They so seldom ever attack too!! You know everyone thinks all sharks look the same, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, but they are all so different!! Salmon sharks are kinda cute to me, I mean here is thie mean looking shark and then it has like black splotches all over it. It's funny! Have you guys seen a greenland shark??? Lemme find a picture!

Here's one picture! By the way, if you guys see on the picture, it says sharkdivermag.com, there is a whole group of "idiots" out there like me that go out and specifically swim with different types of sharks!! :lol: I can't wait to join them on an expedition!!

Here is another shot of the Greenland (or sleeper) shark. They are kinda cute in an ugly way! Researchers thought that because they were so large and living in such cold waters (in the Arctic) that these sharks moved very slowly to conserve energy. They do kind of lumber about but one time they were down there with a rather large female and it all of a sudden darted away. The scientists were so shocked, they had no idea they could move so quickly!!

I just have one more greenland shark picture...see how big they can get?!?!?!

See if you guys can name these sharks right off the top of your head!! Click the picture to make it easier to see. See how different these sharks all are from each other?!?!

Each shark has a different caudal fin (tail) for different purposes. Each shark has different pectoral fins...coloration...size...dorsal fin...(you guys got lucky that they all have an anal fin this time around and a second dorsal fin!)

I think I might have 2 right (B and C) and the rest are guesses. Actually, I think they all are!

A Blue
B Black tip reefer
C Tiger
D Sand Tiger or Grey Nurse????
E Thresher? Can't see all of the tail but those big pectorals made me think Thresher for some reason. Heck, I wouldn't even know a Mako unless I was having a good day! Maybe it's an Oceanice Whitetip?

Erica, this is why you are called Sharkluver! You're our resident expert!

Cheers beer:

Andy

I've seen footage of the Greenland Shark, kinda looks an undeveloped type of thing. Spends a lot of time under ice and does grow big. Very cool though, mysterious shark like the Megamouth.

Cheers beer:

Andy

Not quite there Andy. Close, but no cigar (and I mean the Admirals, so you know their worth it!!). If no one else wants to try I'll post the answer!

Nuts! :lol:

A - Blue Shark
B - Caribbean Reef Shark
C - Tiger Shark
D - Oceanic Whitetip
E - Bull shark

Cheers!

Oh man, how little I know... :blink: You know, since we have only discovered, what, 10 percent of ocean life, do you think there are other species of sharks that are, to this day, unkown to us??? Just a deep thought...I love deep thoughts, they really get your mind going. :)

That's a good point Heather. There are over 365 different species of shark that we know of right now... sharks live in every ocean in the world and all over every ocean. The Bull shark even lives in rivers and lakes that are connected to the ocean (it has more names than any other shark out there!!) Just a random question, but does anyone know any other names for the Bull shark? I'll give you my favorite - the Zambezi Shark...this is certianly an interesting species.

I think there are shark species that we haven't discovered. There are sharks that we have never even seen alive but we know they exist because fisherman bring them up in nets....

When I get back to work on Monday I'll post some cool pictures of some weird sharks!! Mind you they aren't all live pictures...some of them are drawn because we've never seen one alive!! Duh duh dun....

I know I know, I have way too much time on my hands to learn all this random stuff about sharks...but I've been gathering all of this "knowledge" since I was about knee high to a grasshopper!!!

I just had to add these pictures!

1. Ugly
2. Uglier! LOL
3. Thresher
4. Hammerhead? Can't make pic big enough, supposed to be working anyway!
5. Whale shark. We have heaps of these visit the NW of West Oz, will go diving with them one of these days. Unfortunately, some are still being fished for up Indonesia way. One was recently tagged and was tracked to an Indo island where the tag has stopped moving....hopefully it's just fallen off.

Bull sharks have been spotted several hundred miles up the Amazon!

Check this link out:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17861...0.html?from=rss

Cheers

Andy

Is 'E' shark really small???