Jul
2011
Great White Shark Lands Aboard Research Boat
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by Jeff Fox in Marinelife
You ever heard the old fisherman’s tale about the fishing being so good that the fish were jumping into the boat? Well, how about the one about the where the fishing was so good that the shark jumped into the boat?! Marine biologists with Oceans Research are able to tell that tale and not worry about their noses growing from lying.
The team were recently out doing research in Mossel Bay, South Africa when a half-ton great white shark thought he would get a little better acquainted with his audience in the boat. The shark shot himself out of the water and onto the deck of the boat, where he then flipped himself onto the fuel tank, damaging it and stranding the researchers. Luckily the boat’s passengers were able to scramble out of the way before the shark landed on top of them.
“They’re huge animals and they’re able to work up speed in the water,” Cassie Heil of the research station told the Waterloo Region Record. “It was the closest encounter you could possibly have with a great white shark.”
With the “beached” shark far too heavy to lift back into the water, the biologists had to wait for a tow back to the harbour. To keep the shark alive they poured water on its gills.
“As soon as we got in the harbour, we could put a water hose in its mouth so it could breathe,” explained Heil. “Its orientation was off and it didn’t know where it was. Two scientists tried to ‘walk it’ (help it swim) to get it going. An hour later, it beached itself. So we attached it by rope behind the pectoral fins and towed it out behind the boat.” Which did the trick as the shark got its bearings again and took off into the water, as good as new.
And you probably thought that Jaws was a work of fiction.
