Last week in Grand Cayman at Royal Palms Ledges (a huge undercut / overhang dive site) a Nurse shark appeared that had likely been hit by a boat propellor. The injury had almost severed the tail behind the dorsal fin. It was still swimming (due to shark's not having a bony spinal column I assume) but was definately moving slow......
The head had a length wise cut, too, leading us to believe it was hit in one spot and then the other reacting to being injured.
Only thing I can think is maybe it was chasing a shoal of fish near the surface at night where a boat ran it over without even knowing it.....Or it was in very shallow water and got hit.
Very sad to observe......
dhaas
This was some really sad pictures to look at.
Just a couple of weeks ago some tech-divers found a dying hammerhead entangled in a fishnet on 60meters on one of the most popular dive sites here in Hurghada.
Peter
is that possibly a propeller ? it looks too clean for that. hows about a fishing line ?
either way ..poor sharky .. looks like a nice one too.
Giles,
When we first had it swim by us and settle in to rest, I thought fishing line, too. But as it let us get close to examine the wounds, the long cut on the snout looks like a propellor skip to me. Just like I've seen on Manatees......
Sad, sad, sad.....
dhaas
Prop? Maybe. But fishermen can be pretty brutal when they've got a shark on the line that they don't want. Those three lines on the left side of the snout look suspicious, like abrasions from a heavy leader. (And it's hard to imagine how a prop would slice through just once on the tail and just once on the snout. Nurses also don't spend much time up near the surface unless they happen to be in shallows.) I watched a fisherman stab a porbeagle multiple times in the snout when it came up tail-wrapped in a bottom longline set for haddock. There was no reason for it; he didn't like sharks, and that was all there was to it. Maybe this nurse shark ran into just such a fisherman.
Amazing, though, the kinds of wounds sharks can endure. If only for a few days.
