After the fatal shark attack of December last year, it has become clear that there is a woefully inadequate amount of data on the shark populations of the Red Sea. There are limited projects involving sharks such as Dr. Elke Bojanowski's excellent Longimanus study, and one of the owners of my dive centre has her own whale shark project, but in terms of other species, there is next to no data. For 20 years and more, dive guides have been writing up what they've seen on a whiteboard which gets erased every month - a whole world of information that has never been shared or collated.
With that in mind, I would like to ask for your help, to try and draw information from dive guides and visitors to the Red Sea. Shark species that frequent our waters are:
- Oceanic White Tip
- White-tip reef Shark
- Whale Shark
- Blacktip shark (charcarinus limbatus)
- Blacktip reef shark
- Grey Reef shark / Blacktail shark - actually generally regarded nowadays as the same species of shark with slightly different markings)
- Leopard shark (aka Zebra shark, but the adults are spotty)
- Mako
- Scalloped hammerhead
- Great Hammerhead
- Tiger shark
- Silvertip
- Silky
All of these appear at some place or other at different times of the year. The information I am specifically looking for is from Egyptian dive sites - a colleague tells me that Sudan actually has an active shark monitoring program. The locations are therefore: Taba, Nuweiba, Dahab, Sharm, Hurghada, El Gouna, El Qsir, St John's national park, Elphinstone, Marsa Alam, etc. etc.
The information I need is this:
(1) Species of shark if known
(2) Approximate length of shark or juvenile/adolescent/adult if known
(3) Date and time of sighting (exact is best, but "mid-march, about 3pm" would do)
(4) Location - reef and region - i.e. Jackson Reef, Sharm El Sheikh
(5) Water temperature
(6) Depth
(7) Fin markings - dorsal white, caudal (tail) fin black stripe or white tip, pectoral fins tipped with this or that colour
(8) Other Distinctive markings - i.e. "chunk missing from upper lobe of caudal fin", in the case of the longimanus responsible for the fatal attack here in sharm, or "wide pectoral fins in proportion to body mass" - clear sign of a juvenile oceanic
(9) Behaviour patterns - cruising by, feeding, skittish, close pass, solitary, in groups, bumping, biting etc.
(10) Size of dive / snorkel group
Photos would of course be best. The best pictures would be in full profile, with fin tips clearly displayed. Spot markings on whale sharks or leopard/zebra sharks helps to identify the individual, fin shape and colouration (particularly of the dorsal fin) helps to identify other species with less obvious markings
Any information would be welcome, but "2 metre long shark in Ras Mohamed" is meaningless and also probably means you saw a big tuna, cobia, spanish mackerel or milkfish, which are all commonly misidentified as sharks. If you're not sure what you saw, please don't reply. Anything without a photo, or that cannot be independently confirmed by other witnesses (preferably a diver or guide experienced in the region), gives false information, so please don't respond unless you can positively identify what you saw as a shark.
All this information will be collected and passed on as best I can, but since nobody else seems to have bothered, I figure that something is better than nothing, and I bet a bunch of you out there have some great photos that nobody has ever seen apart from friends and family.
At the moment I have no means for posting this on the internet - I don't have facebook (but am re-considering after the FB/twitter revolution) but PM me for my private e-mail address if you have a photo that won't fit on here - maximum resolution and size is best.
Many thanks - I am not a shark expert by any means, but yes, I'm trying to start a mini revolution of my own
Cheers
C.
With that in mind, I would like to ask for your help, to try and draw information from dive guides and visitors to the Red Sea. Shark species that frequent our waters are:
- Oceanic White Tip
- White-tip reef Shark
- Whale Shark
- Blacktip shark (charcarinus limbatus)
- Blacktip reef shark
- Grey Reef shark / Blacktail shark - actually generally regarded nowadays as the same species of shark with slightly different markings)
- Leopard shark (aka Zebra shark, but the adults are spotty)
- Mako
- Scalloped hammerhead
- Great Hammerhead
- Tiger shark
- Silvertip
- Silky
All of these appear at some place or other at different times of the year. The information I am specifically looking for is from Egyptian dive sites - a colleague tells me that Sudan actually has an active shark monitoring program. The locations are therefore: Taba, Nuweiba, Dahab, Sharm, Hurghada, El Gouna, El Qsir, St John's national park, Elphinstone, Marsa Alam, etc. etc.
The information I need is this:
(1) Species of shark if known
(2) Approximate length of shark or juvenile/adolescent/adult if known
(3) Date and time of sighting (exact is best, but "mid-march, about 3pm" would do)
(4) Location - reef and region - i.e. Jackson Reef, Sharm El Sheikh
(5) Water temperature
(6) Depth
(7) Fin markings - dorsal white, caudal (tail) fin black stripe or white tip, pectoral fins tipped with this or that colour
(8) Other Distinctive markings - i.e. "chunk missing from upper lobe of caudal fin", in the case of the longimanus responsible for the fatal attack here in sharm, or "wide pectoral fins in proportion to body mass" - clear sign of a juvenile oceanic
(9) Behaviour patterns - cruising by, feeding, skittish, close pass, solitary, in groups, bumping, biting etc.
(10) Size of dive / snorkel group
Photos would of course be best. The best pictures would be in full profile, with fin tips clearly displayed. Spot markings on whale sharks or leopard/zebra sharks helps to identify the individual, fin shape and colouration (particularly of the dorsal fin) helps to identify other species with less obvious markings
Any information would be welcome, but "2 metre long shark in Ras Mohamed" is meaningless and also probably means you saw a big tuna, cobia, spanish mackerel or milkfish, which are all commonly misidentified as sharks. If you're not sure what you saw, please don't reply. Anything without a photo, or that cannot be independently confirmed by other witnesses (preferably a diver or guide experienced in the region), gives false information, so please don't respond unless you can positively identify what you saw as a shark.
All this information will be collected and passed on as best I can, but since nobody else seems to have bothered, I figure that something is better than nothing, and I bet a bunch of you out there have some great photos that nobody has ever seen apart from friends and family.
At the moment I have no means for posting this on the internet - I don't have facebook (but am re-considering after the FB/twitter revolution) but PM me for my private e-mail address if you have a photo that won't fit on here - maximum resolution and size is best.
Many thanks - I am not a shark expert by any means, but yes, I'm trying to start a mini revolution of my own
Cheers
C.
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