Re: NANFA-- Blacktip Sharks

Scott Davis (unclescott_at_prodigy.net)
Fri, 7 Jul 2000 18:47:44 -0500

There was a bull shark caught by (rather surprised) commercial fishermen in
the Mississippi River off of Alton, Illinois in the 1930s, presumably before
the flood control dams. Jim Thomerson wrote about it in a note to Copeia
several years ago. Evidentially Carcharhinus leucas can manage freshwater so
long as it is up to a certain temperature. The "freshwater shark" of Lake
Nicaragua, they have been found a couple thousand miles up the Amazon near
Manaus and are feared elsewhere as man-eaters as the Zambezi or Tigris
shark. Records of them in most of the great warm water rivers exist. One
source suggested that the trouble they cause stems from a cosmopolitan diet
and their tendency to be territorial - they believe their territory to be
whatever area they are in. :)

All the best,

Scott

----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Neely <rheopresbe_at_hotmail.com>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: NANFA-- Blacktip Sharks

> Rob,
>
> >This week...for the first time I know of...schools of Blacktip Sharks
> >were seen and caught in the Mobile/Tensaw Delta. One angler using
> >20-pound test hooked 10 of them...and landed a small 14 pounder.
> >Most of them just broke lines like thread. The Blacktip is a large
>shark!
> >
> >Any of you folks up at Tuscaloosa or Huntsville ever heard reports like
> >this before?
>
> Yeah. Lots of taxa will move in/offshore based on salinity levels. Should
be
> seeing other sharks (ie, bull sharks, silky sharks, etc), plus a lot of
> other primarily marine taxa well within the Bay for a while. Makes seining
> fun...
>
> cheers,
> Dave

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