A Thank You To YOU (but not done yet)! Now go out and make a difference!

(Picture from yesterday!)

So I am presenting this blog later on today and this the last post before I have to present. I just want to thank you all for coming onto my blog and commenting! I am so thankful for you guys especially since I go people from FRANCE, UKRAINE, AND SOUTH AFRICA!! I never thought my blog would reach outside of the US but it did! Thank you so much!

Now I am going to continue this blog because hopefully one day I can put my own videos and pictures up so please keep looking at this blog!

So before I continue back up with sharks in the Caribbean I thought I should give you guys and girls and list of some shark conservation groups you can look at and support! Follow the links below because.....

Follow Link for Picture!


Some shark groups:
(Some I found and others I already knew about)
Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS)
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
Conservation Groups List
Another List

But for now I will leave you with this Great White Shark by Andy Brandy Casagrande IV

Follow Link for Video!

East Coast: Caribbean: Bull Shark

Please comment!!!!

Bull Sharks

Follow this for link to picture!


Now these guys I think are the real "Jaws". They are found anywhere in coastal warm waters and even found in the Amazon River. Their kidneys help their salt levels stay the same when they go into fresh water by controlling how much salt is taking out of their body through their blood (check out this article by Shark Savers, great way to explain it). Because of this special ability, that is why I think they are the real "Jaws" because they can go anywhere and they do not like anything in their territory.

And in the movie "Jaws" when they say shark attacks can happen in three foot of water, yes it can. This Bull kept knocking into the guy on purpose to see who the heck was in it's space:

Link for Video
(I apologize that the video quality is poor so follow the link for a better video)

 So why don't like they like anything in their territory? Well it's because they are very aggressive species of shark. They have higher testosterone levels than any other shark so the females can be a little aggressive because the extra sex hormones in their body, but the males are super aggressive! That's why they are just jerks if you ask me. People think Great Whites are scary and bad, but it's really these guys because they are so aggressive. They are the shark with the highest rate of shark attacks (even though one site earlier said otherwise, I think they need to look more into that) not Great Whites.

Map of where they can be found:

Link for Picture

But as side to the high testosterone, there is still a lot about this species of shark. These species of shark grow a little over 6 feet, but don't get as long as male Great Whites (13 feet if you remember!). The cool thing about these sharks is that their gestation is just a month longer from ours and again like other species of shark have a bunch of pups! Like other species of shark, they are endangered again because of fishing. Nevertheless, even though I think these sharks are jerks, they are pretty special. But if I were you, I would observe these sharks from a safety of a boat.

Some more info to look at (National Geographic)

Next Time: A Thank You (but not done yet), and then come back to the Caribbean.

Bibliography

So I took this idea from my friend Raegan and what she did in her blog was take pictures of books she used in her blog (which is a really cool blog by the way) so I decided to do the same.

I really only used one book and then the Internet (which I provided links to the real page so you could see it yourself) so the book I used a couple of times as The Shark Handbook by Dr. Greg Skomal. It's a really cool book on a bunch of sharks and you should all check it out. I had the honor of meeting him once after I realized he wrote the book that was one of the main reason why I want to study sharks. Anyways here's the picture of the book and a link to the publisher's page of the book!

 (Yes I put a bunch of tabs in the this book to help teach myself stuff about sharks because this is a really cool book!)

The Shark Handbook By Dr. Greg Skomal

Again I used this book on just a couple species of sharks like the Greenland because I don't know a lot about them like I do Great Whites.


Please look at the other posts!!! Thanks!!!

More About Me

I will get to the shark posts, but since I am drawing closer to when I get to present this blog, I realized I never talked about the first shark I saw and why I wanted to be a Marine Biologist. So here is the story:

So I am 6 years old and my family takes my brother and I to the New England Aquarium and like any other child I am wicked excited. One thing I remember was seeing this sharks swimming around and it's HUGE! Mind you I am like 4 feet tall at this age so everything is big anyway. So I watch this shark swim around and to me it looks like it's yellow. Then my family went over to the other exhibits and then we left that aquarium with a giant stuffed dolphin because I was in love with those creatures back then. But, I still kept thinking about how I saw that yellow shark. Since I kept thinking about the yellow thing I saw, I told all my friends at school. They all told me what? It couldn't have been yellow! You're crazy. Well at least they said something like that. So I was a little sadden, but I thought the shark was so cool. I learned later on in my life that what I saw was........
A LEMON SHARK!

Lemon Shark Picture

So after that I went through a phase of dolphins and I loved them! But then around middle school I started to think about that "yellow" shark again. I started to remember how most kids would be scared, but I wasn't. Maybe at first but I was standing there fascinating in it's yellow glory. As I kept thinking about it I decided that I still wanted to be a Marine Biologist but instead of dolphins, I wanted to study them sharks. Then I realized I wanted to hug one too.

My question for my audience is have you seen your first shark? If you have already seen a shark for the first time where was it? Were you scared? Nervous? Excited?

Please answer in the comments below!!!!

Next Time: The Caribbean!!

A Shark Lives Longer Than A Moose

In the past posts about the sharks themselves, I never mentioned how long they live. The lifespan of sharks in unknown for most species, but for some like the Great White and Whale it's 100 years. For other species like Spiny Dogfish it can even be 100 years while Moose are only 25 years hence the title for this post. In one of my other classes we're learning about Moose and I realized I never talked about the lifespan which inspired this post.

For "I say" picture

But if you want to see a table of what the lifespan is of other species of shark (which is what I did because I knew Great Whites were already rumored to live until 100), here is a link (Enchanted Learning) to an article which again shows most of it is unknown which is why shark research and funding it is so important.

Keep in mind if you do your own research on how long they live, you will see captivity lifespans for some sharks, but a lot of species of shark are not good in captivity. The perfect example of that is Great White Sharks. Every time they put those big sharks in a tank, they die in the end some not lasting long while others last for a good while. If you ask me it's because the Great White Shark needs a bigger tank so big that an aquarium can't provide for because they travel so much in their life. Also I think their ampullae of Lorenzini (I will explain later in another Fun Tip post) goes crazy which is why you hear how the Great White will bang into the glass a bunch of times. I couldn't find a video of it but found one of the first success stories I am now hearing. Shark is still alive, but not in the aquarium anymore. Check it out!

(From YouTube link here: First Great White in Captivity

I hope you enjoyed this little post, but I will start on the next group of sharks soon!

Please comment and look at the other posts!

Why I'm doing this FOR PERSUASION!

So a week or go ago or so, someone asked me what I wanted to do for a career. My answer was to be a Marine Biologist so I can study Great White Sharks, which I'm already doing by studying Marine Biology at college. This person asking the question said to me "Now is there money in this kind of thing?"....

Now this kind of thing pisses me off I will say because it's not about the money (yes it would be great to make a bunch of money like Bruce Wayne, but...) IT'S ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE! It's about making a difference in the world and even protecting Great White Sharks themselves. I want to educate people on sharks because people think they are man-eaters! The person that even asked me about what I wanted to do even said "Make sure you keep them away from us"....

No...just no...this is the main reason why I decided to do yet another project on sharks because there are people like the person that asked me the question, that are not fully aware about everything about sharks. I know a good amount about sharks because I read shark books and then yes Shark Week, but whenever I see books about sharks I have to buy them. So I want to put more information out there for the world to see.

Which is why this blog is such a great idea! I get to educate all of you so that you can go out into the world and know that sharks don't mean any harm really they just make mistakes. Then with this information that you learn, you know that you should help conserve them because you now know that some shark species only have a couple of pups with a gestation of a least an average of a year!

This is why I do this, I do it to help us stay safe and understand them while helping out the sharks. To help promote my blog because I believe in it and want to make people open their minds, I wore a shark costume...around school for two days through classes and even meals....I did it all FOR PERSUASION!

It was very successful because I ended up being put on Yik Yak, and even Snapchat stories. By doing this, people saw my sign went on my blog and then walked away knowing how to protect and help educate people.

So I hope after reading this, my reasons are now much more clearer to you in what I am trying to do. Please remember that sharks are friends not enemies and should be respected like you respect your friends.

Next Time: East: Caribbean! and we get to look at Hammerheads, Black Tips, White Tips, and some others!

Photo Credits to my friends: Kaitlyn, Lilah, Greg, and Jo!

Mid-Atlantic: Iceland & Greenland: Greenland Sharks

PLEASE COMMENT AND KEEP VIEWING! Also vote!!

Greenland Sharks

Greenland Shark Photo: Credit to Doug Perrine

First thing to know about these sharks is that they have parasites that get in their eyes. The parasites cause the sharks to actually go blind (Parasite). Greenland sharks are cannibalistic, which I learned reading one of my many shark books (The Shark Handbook by Dr. Greg Skomal).  The Shark Handbook Review from Goodreads. These sharks that are as big as Great Whites, mainly patrol the very cold water around Iceland, Greenland, and even the Arctic. They also can be found in Canada's waters as well and through some research even in South Africa and Antarctica.

Here is a map:

Greenland Shark Map Picture

Now what do these sharks eat? Since their blind they just swim on the bottom looking for corpses of dead animals even horses and reindeer. Then like mentioned before, they are cannibalistic as well. They even feed on seals.

When it comes to breeding, again the female is bigger than the male and they are ovoviviparous. This term means that the eggs hatch inside their body and then are born live without an attachment from their mother and this definition came from Dictionary.com.They also give birth to a bunch of pups!

Now Greenland Sharks populations are threatened by fishing like any other sharks. They are not as threatened as other sharks by looking at a list made by Shark Advocates International . The reason is because when they are fished for their meat, the meat is too toxic to eat right away because of the chemicals in it. So fisherman just grab a couple of sharks then hang them up to wait for the toxic chemicals so they don't need to hunt as many sharks. After the meat as fully decomposed as much as it can then is turned into Hakarl. That is why they are not as threatened as other sharks because they are not fished constantly for their meat.

There is still a lot to learn about these sharks, but they are amazing creatures.

Fun Fact I learned while doing research: they attack Polar Bears!


Helpful sources that helped me and can help you:
Greenland Shark Info
More Greenland Info that helped me write this post from R. Aidan Martin
Daily Mail article
Hakarl

Next Time:
Why I'm doing this FOR PERSUASION!