Recued, now rehab
- Thread starter beachbumtx
- Start date
beachbumtx
Member
Originally posted by lovethesea
OH wow! Thanks for the pics. I have been worrying about her all day. So she seems to be coming around? What do they think happend to her? She seems so little I wonder if she got separated. Do you work with the rescue in your town? Lord, if I lived on the coast I would do that in a heart beat.
Her blood seems pretty normal for the most part. Some levels are kind of high, but not real bad. Her white blood cells are elevated, but I have seen a lot worse. We might get a better idea about her in a week. We can only speculate as this time. We can speculate that she probably got seperated from her group and got caught up in the heavy surf we have had recently.
This species is considered to be pelagic species and not normally found close to shore. I have a running theory related to some of the strandings we have had in the past 5 years. The part of the Gulf of Mexico we live at there is a current convergance. The convergance combined with long shore currents (wind driven) cause eddies ti spiral off the main Gulf current. These eddies move towards shore and often are a different water temparture then the near shore waters. If offshore animals are caught up in these eddies, they usually stay in them because they get confused or can not handle the temperature change. These eddies come ashore and cause marine mammals to beach themselves. I believe this has happen th past strandings that included melon head whales (9 of them), a false killer whale, a pygmy killer whale, and this spinner dolphin. This is just my theory.
Now, this has been observed with fish. We target these eddies when fishing and have found a wide variety of fish within them that normally don't come close to shore. Such fish inlcude yellowfin tunas and big dolphins (dorado/mahi mahi). Locally, we don't normally these fish close to shore due to how shallow our near shore waters are. In our area, you must travel 40 miles out to reach the shelf drop off. When shre fishing, I will plan my beach trips by looking at the online satellite sites to read water temperature. You can see these eddie by water temperature differences. We find out where it comes ashore at and fish for sharks there. There is a research oppirtunity here dealing with those eddies.
Back to the topic, I volunteer for the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network. I am a rehab supervisor. Hopefully I will be getting a coordinator position.
Regarding Santa, that is Tony Amos. He is a well known naturalist. I say naturalist because he doesn't any or much formal education, but is on of the most knowledgeable person that I know. For someone with no degrees, he has a lot of published research work...and it is almost impossible to get published ithout a degree. Our nickname for him is Noah, from Noah's ark. Tony runs the Animal Rehab Keep (ARK) at University of Texas Marine Sience Institute.
lovethesea
Active Member
Originally posted by BeachBumTX
Regarding Santa, that is Tony Amos. He is a well known naturalist. I say naturalist because he doesn't any or much formal education, but is on of the most knowledgeable person that I know. For someone with no degrees, he has a lot of published research work...and it is almost impossible to get published ithout a degree. Our nickname for him is Noah, from Noah's ark. Tony runs the Animal Rehab Keep (ARK) at University of Texas Marine Sience Institute.
Well, he's Santa now :yes: People like him are smarter than some Ph D's. His necklace of knowlege cotains many pearls of wisdom. Someone can probably learn more from him in a week than a years education!
Give us more pics of Harley when you can. What do you guys do with the sharks you fish?
thanks again for the update.
beachbumtx
Member
Thanks for the responses everyone.
Lovethesea, the sharks I catch, I tag for migration studies and collect tissue samples to build a genetic library to compare with genetic data from other parts of the states and the world to see if there may be population differences.
I have tremendous respect for sharks. THey are one of the few organisms that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs. It would be a shame for man kind to be the reason for their extinction. Learning about them and encouraging catch and release of sharks is the first step in rebuilding the stocks.
Lovethesea, the sharks I catch, I tag for migration studies and collect tissue samples to build a genetic library to compare with genetic data from other parts of the states and the world to see if there may be population differences.
I have tremendous respect for sharks. THey are one of the few organisms that have been around since the time of the dinosaurs. It would be a shame for man kind to be the reason for their extinction. Learning about them and encouraging catch and release of sharks is the first step in rebuilding the stocks.
lovethesea
Active Member
I have been hearing about how sharks in Asia are being slaughtered for the dorsal fin? Supposedly a delicacy.
So just how is a shark released? I'm thinkin' its not like when we go fishing and we catch and release rainbow trout
So just how is a shark released?
I'm thinkin' its not like when we go fishing and we catch and release rainbow trout
beachbumtx
Member
Tis true about the fins...
When we shore fish for sharks, we do not remove them from the water unless they are small. Larger specimens are left in the water so the water can help support their weight. There is always someone on the shark to secure it. Large sharks usually do not struggle as much as smaller shark do while being handled. On the release, we walk our sharks in the water until they swim away.
Offshore, we do not bring large shark aboard the boat. Anything that needs a gaff to bring aboard is tagged with a tagging stick and the leader is then cut. Small sharks are brought aboard for tagging.
Most of my pictures are no longer on the net. When I get some time I will scan them in and post a few up to give you a better idea. Ihave an excellent photo of a 9'6" lemon shark that we left in the water while handling it.
When we shore fish for sharks, we do not remove them from the water unless they are small. Larger specimens are left in the water so the water can help support their weight. There is always someone on the shark to secure it. Large sharks usually do not struggle as much as smaller shark do while being handled. On the release, we walk our sharks in the water until they swim away.
Offshore, we do not bring large shark aboard the boat. Anything that needs a gaff to bring aboard is tagged with a tagging stick and the leader is then cut. Small sharks are brought aboard for tagging.
Most of my pictures are no longer on the net. When I get some time I will scan them in and post a few up to give you a better idea. Ihave an excellent photo of a 9'6" lemon shark that we left in the water while handling it.
lovethesea
Active Member
Originally posted by BeachBumTX
. On the release, we walk our sharks in the water until they swim away.
then they swim around and take a chunck out of you. :help:
If there was a fainting smiley, I would place it right in the front of my sentence. But in their defense, they are probably scared to death and just want to swim away as fast as possible.
right???
beachbumtx
Member
Originally posted by lovethesea
then they swim around and take a chunck out of you. :help:
If there was a fainting smiley, I would place it right in the front of my sentence. But in their defense, they are probably scared to death and just want to swim away as fast as possible. right???
Personally, I have never worried about the larger sharks. They usually are so tired, once we get them swimming again, they just swim off to deeper water. Its the little ones that scare me. They don't put up a fight so they have a lot of energy left. As soon as we get them into the water, they go nuts. Probably out of confusion, but we have had several double back on us. However, no one has been bitten while doing this...at least not out of our group, but I don't recall anyone ever getting bit. The only time I have heard of a fisherman getting bitten by a shark they caught, it was usually while trying to remove the hook. Gotta respect what you are handling.
lovethesea
Active Member
forgot to ask........how is Harley. My daughter has every pic of her on her bedroom door
beachbumtx
Member
She is trying to swim on her own. We are still having someone in the tank guiding her. We are tube feeding her squid, water, pedelite. I have been busy with school lately, but I will be back out there this evening.
lovethesea
Active Member
bump for sinner