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DIVERS' BIG FIND ISN'T BIG DEAL TO SCIENTISTS
Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
June 12, 2007
Author: GRETEL SARMIENTO, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
There appeared to be something looming in the water when Terry Coburn came up from her dive at the Sea Emperor artificial reef near the Boca Raton Inlet Sunday morning.
That's when Coburn and 30 other divers discovered a dead 30-foot whale shark.
"Oh it was so sombering," Coburn said describing the sight.
After making sure the animal wasn't just sleeping, Coburn, a scuba trainer for Lighthouse Dive in Pompano Beach, got up close while diver Joe Marino, with the South Florida Dive Headquarters, took photographs.
"It was an unfortunate morning," Marino said. "Any diver would rather see something as magnificent as that alive and swimming than dead.
"There aren't many times as a diver you see something five times your size."
The group contacted different agencies and authorities all day Sunday but got no apparent attention from them, Jeff Torode said. He said the fish didn't appear to be an adult, which can reach 50 feet. The group estimated this one to be 30 feet long.
They found no marks or apparent injuries from boats.
Whale sharks are found worldwide typically in warm tropical waters, and thus this one's death did not draw much attention, said George Burgess, director of the shark research program at the Florida Museum of Natural History
"Whale sharks are not horribly rare," Burgess said. "There's no compelling reason to try to determine why or how it died."
It is one of only three known shark species that feed on plankton and small vertebrates, a process called filter-feeding. And except from their large tail fin, which can accidentally strike swimmers, they do not pose a threat to people.
The magnitude of the fish could fascinate a first-time spectator, Burgess said.
"From that standpoint there's great interest," he said. "But from the standpoint of obligation, scientifically it's not as high in the order as if you had a dead manatee."
Enric Cortes, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Shark Population Assessment Group in Panama City said what makes this species unique is its size: "It's the largest fish in the world."
The value of examining the animal, which has been left floating in the ocean, would depend on its condition, scientists said. A DNA sample could have revealed differences in the shark population, and a piece of the backbone could have told the age of the animal for archival purposes, Burgess said.
gretel_sarmiento@pbpost.com Caption:
PHOTO (C)
Caption:
Photo by JOE MARINO
Up close and personal:Terry Coburn gets her picture taken with a dead 30-foot whale shark that divers found drifting near the Sea Emperor artificial reef near the Boca Raton Inlet on Sunday morning. Calls to officials about the find generated little interest, except among the startled divers, and the fish was left to drift.
Memo: Ran all editions.
Edition: FINAL
Section: LOCAL
Page: 1B
Index Terms: OCEAN ANIMAL SCIENCE ENVIRONMENT SIZE DEATH
Dateline: BOCA RATON
Copyright (c) 2007 Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
A MYSTERY OF THE DEEP: THE DEATH OF A GENTLE GIANT
Miami Herald, The (FL)
June 12, 2007
Author: ERIKA BOLSTAD ebolstad@MiamiHerald.com
Abstract: Divers found a dead whale shark Sunday off the coast of Pompano Beach, near a shipwreck visited by dive boats.
It's the biggest fish in the ocean, and one of the most magnificent creatures any diver could ever hope to encounter.
So when dive boat captain Jeff Torode heard Sunday afternoon that a 30-foot whale shark was spotted off the coast of Boca Raton, he steered the Aqua View toward the sighting. The placid, filter-feeding sharks are not rare, but it is uncommon for divers to see them because they prefer deep water.
By the time the boat arrived, the whale shark was no longer alive -- it had probably been dead for at least a day. But curious for a closer look, dive instructor Terri Coburn and photographer Joe Marino jumped in to see if they could determine why the massive fish had died. Torode kept the other divers on board, just in case the carcass had attracted scavenger sharks.
Even from aboard the ship, though, it was an amazing view, said diver Pete Sparkman, a tourist from St. Louis.
"You could see the middle portion. It was curved, like a parabola basically," Sparkman said. "You could see maybe five, 10 feet of it, on the surface. Then the tail dipped down on one side and the head was on the other. You could see some small sharks swimming around, but I don't think anything had bitten it yet."
Marino, a fervent recreational diver who never forgets his Nikon D-200, described swimming around the fish as unlike any of his previous underwater experiences.
"If it was alive, I think the feeling would have been just sheer exhilaration," Marino said. "The fact that it was dead kind of hurt, personally, because here was this magnificent creature of nature that we were blessed to see and we never really had the opportunity to watch it swim on its own."
No one knows why the shark died. It didn't appear to be injured or look as though it had been rammed by a boat, Marino said.
The sharks are federally protected, but not particularly rare. They are not common in Florida, and it is even more unusual for divers to see them so near to shore, said Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.
The last time a dead whale shark was sighted was 2001, when a 20-foot specimen was found headless in the turning basin of Port Everglades and was towed by the Coast Guard six miles out to sea.
Torode said he was told Monday afternoon that the city of Boca Raton may have paid a salvage company to tow the carcass farther off shore so it wouldn't wash up onto municipal beaches. City officials couldn't confirm the report, saying only that they're trying to sort out what has happened.
FLOATING ON
"The last I heard it was floating off Lantana, in about 250 feet of water, heading north," Torode said.
The fish are called whale sharks because they look like whales, said José Castro, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Despite the names, they are, in fact, fish. Like all sharks, they have cartilaginous skeletons, not bone, Castro said.
Diving with whale sharks is a magical experience, said Hueter, whose study of the creatures has taken him to Dubai and Mexico's Yucatán peninsula.
"It's life-changing," Hueter said. "It's the last place on the planet in the wild where you can be that close to such an animal and be without any risk. These guys are so benign and gentle and graceful. Just to be swimming along this 40-foot long, many-tonned animal, and to have it be aware of you, is just a marvelous experience."
LIFE CYCLE REVEALED
It wasn't until about 10 years ago when scientists found a female whale shark in Taiwan that they learned how whale sharks "pupped" their young, Castro said.
Like all sharks, male and females mate, Hueter said. Female sharks hold the eggs until the young develop and give birth to a brood of as many as 300 at a time. At birth, young whale sharks are about two-feet long -- and completely independent of their mother.
They're filter feeders that eat mostly plankton, so they aren't a threat to humans in their rare encounters.
Because the fish spotted by divers this week has been dead for several days, it has little value for research and will probably be allowed to decompose at sea. Although it's impossible to know how it died without close study, Hueter said, it's likely it was injured by a boat. In his research, he's seen some whale sharks with scars and missing pieces of their fins.
So the whale shark's death will remain a mystery, known only to the sea. And divers like Marino will continue their quest to see one of the live behemoths.
"It's very rare, when you're diving, to be in the presence of something so magnificent," Marino said. "It really puts you in your place as a human, that you're really only so big, so strong. And that nature is all that much greater than yourself. And we're not going to tame it." Caption:
JOE MARINO/FOR THE MIAMI HERALD RARE SIGHT: Diver Terri Coburn takes a close-up look at a 30-foot whale shark found dead off the coast of Boca Raton. The cause of death was a mystery.
Edition: Final
Section: Front
Page: 1A
Copyright (c) 2007 The Miami Herald
