|
|
|
08 April 2009 Rare shark caught and eaten [Keyword: sharks ]
A megamouth shark, one of the world's most elusive species, was caught, carved up and eaten by fishermen from a town in the Philippines, the environmental conservation group WWF said Tuesday.
So rare are megamouth shark sightings that each find is given a number -- this one, caught by fishermen from the coastal town of Donsol, was only the 41st ever seen or captured in the world.
But Elson Aca, a Donsol WWF representative, said it was butchered and its meat sauteed in coconut milk as a local delicacy, against the organisation's advice.
The four-metre (13-foot), half-tonne (1,100-pound) megamouth was snared by fishermen trawling for mackerel off the Bicol peninsula on Luzon island.
The species, which is named after its metre-wide mouth, is a fairly recent scientific discovery. The first specimen was caught off Oahu, Hawaii in 1976, the WWF said.
The scientific community hailed it as the 20th century?s most significant marine find, it added.
Together with the whale shark it is one of only three filter-feeding shark species in the world.
It is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as "data deficient" because so few have ever been studied.
Ironically Donsol has earned a global reputation for marine conservation, after campaigners convinced the locals to stop butchering giant whale sharks which use the nearby waters to feed.
The town prides itself as the whale shark capital of the world and marine tourism is a key money earner.
The Philippines sits at the apex of a so-called Coral Triangle, considered by experts as a world centre for marine bio-diversity.
Source: AFP
|
Similiar
Stories in the earthdive news database:
 |
03 April 2009: Sharks movements monitored
Research from the Australian Acoustic Tagging and Monitoring System (AATAMS) shows the effect of water temperature on the movement and distribution of sharks. |
 |
10 March 2009: Maldives moves to protect its sharks
Hunting reef sharks is now banned throughout Maldivian waters. The government decision has made the Indian Ocean archipelago the first nation in the region to outlaw the practice. |
 |
02 November 2008: Whale sharks to satellite tracked
In a first of its kind initiative, whale sharks found along the Gujarat coast will be put on satellite monitoring which will help scientists to understand their migratory patterns and other data of the fish. |
 |
26 August 2008: NASA helps track Whale Sharks
Photos of giant whale sharks snapped by vacationing scuba divers and snorkelers are helping scientists track the elusive marine creatures across the oceans. |
 |
28 June 2008: Sharks 'Fly' Like Fighter Pilots
Sharks can execute underwater "flight" moves that would have put some fighter pilots to shame, two researchers announced last week. |
 |
29 May 2008: More Sharks in the Soup
With more sharks added to the list of threatened species, Oceana reiterates the EU’s opportunity for establishing responsible conservation measures for these vulnerable species. |
 |
23 May 2008: Sharks swim closer to extinction
More than half of the world's ocean-going sharks are at risk of extinction, a new analysis concludes. Specialists with IUCN found that 11 species are on the high-risk list, with five more showing signs of decline. |
 |
21 May 2008: Protecting tiger sharks
Hanging on to the back of a tiger shark to monitor its movements is not what most people would think a conservationist dedicated to preserving coral reef wildlife would do. |
 |
12 May 2008: Electric fields could repel sharks
While the menacing fin of a shark has figured in many human nightmares, people may be the stuff of shark nightmares. In addition to intentionally hunting sharks for food, fishermen often catch them inadvertently. |
 |
13 April 2008: Deep-sea sharks wired for sound
Deep-sea sharks have been tagged and tracked and their habitats precisely mapped in world-first research to test the conservation value of areas closed to commercial fishing. |
|
|
| Previous
Year | Jan
| Feb |
Mar | Apr
| May |
Jun | Jul
| Aug |
Sep | Oct
| Nov |
Dec | Current |
| Get this as an RSS Feed |
Subscribe to this feed
You can subscribe to this RSS feed in a number of ways, including the following:
- Drag the orange RSS button into your News Reader
- Drag the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
- Cut and paste the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
|
|
|
|
