By Lou Robson

PACKS of great white sharks are feeding off southeast Queensland, experts say.

The warmer weather and migrating whales brought the sharks north from their traditional cooler cruising waters in Victoria and South Australia.

"The great whites move up with the whales and follow them back down again," said Department of Primary Industries shark-control program manager Tony Ham.


Read full article: 'Great white shark packs hunt whales up north'

by Alex Chadwick

In Palmyra Atoll, scientists are taking advantage of technology to help them track the movements of sharks, birds, fish and other animals. They use tiny devices, called tags, to record or transmit data.

But the fish and birds must be caught before they can be tagged, and some, like sharks, are more challenging to get hold of than others.


Read full article: 'Scientists Track Shark Behavior in Palmyra Atoll'

Shark populations are at risk from illegal fishing in the Pomene reserve, in the southern Mozambican province of Inhambane, reports Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

This activity is almost exclusively to extract the shark fins, that are then dried and sold, mainly to the Asian market. The rest of the fish meat does not have much market value, but the fins are used to prepare a soup regarded as a delicacy in countries such as China and Japan.


Read full article: 'Mozambique: Illegal Shark Fishing in Inhambane'

By Chesney Bradshaw

Conservationists have fought long and hard battles to save species such as elephants, the rhino, the giant panda, dolphins and whales. Now marine scientists and conservationists face one of their biggest challenges - saving the ocean's sharks.

After visiting a clothing factory in China, Linda Grobbler, a fabric technologist from Cape Town, and her colleagues were invited to lunch at a restaurant in downtown Hong Kong.


Read full article: 'World's sharks threatened by kitchen predator'

A city aquarium has announced what it has called the first-ever birth in captivity of a Pacific angel shark, a sand-burrowing species resembling a ray or a skate that lives along the West Coast.

Because of the difficulty of feeding angel sharks, divers are hand-feeing the 4-ounce, 9-inch pup, said Reid Withrow, director of husbandry at Aquarium of the Bay in the popular Fisherman's Wharf tourist district.


Read full article: 'Pacific Angel Shark Pup Born at Aquarium'

Most hammerhead sharks are thought to be deep in the blue-ocean waters, far away from shore, not lurking around inlets, or washing up to the shoreline of Florida's gulf waters. But they are out there.

During the red-tide scare of 1999, lots of little sea creatures had washed up to the shore at Bradenton Beach, including a dead baby hammerhead. I saw the baby hammerhead while shelling at the beach, and was taken aback by the little fish that if alive, would have grown into a feared, yet majestic predator of the sea. To think that adult-sized hammerheads were actually in the local gulf waters - for a baby shark was birthed from a possibly very large female - was enough to keep me from going out more than waist deep. According to the local anglers, there are Great Hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna Mokarran) lurking throughout the waters of St. Petersburg and Sarasota, not far from Bradenton Beach.


Read full article: 'Great Hammerhead Sharks of Florida'

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

ISLA HOLBOX, Mexico -- The whale shark -- a massive, polka-dotted creature stretching about 23 feet long -- slowly swam up alongside the scientists' boat. As it neared, they tossed a handful of pre-soaked rice in front of its enormous mouth. The rice rushed in along with the seawater, and the whale shark made a shuddering motion.

"There's the cough!" exclaimed Philip Motta, a University of South Florida biology professor, using the catchphrase he and his colleagues coined recently to describe the shark's abrupt way of swallowing.


Read full article: 'World's Biggest Fish Is a Delicate Feeder'

People have been warned to stay away from basking sharks after one was found dead in a fishing net in Cornwall and another injured.

One of the sharks drowned after becoming accidentally entangled in a fishing net off Sennan Cove.




Read full article: 'Appeal after basking shark death'

The Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay are full of sharks this year, according to scientists who conduct surveys in area waters and fishermen who are encountering sharks even deep in the alligator-filled waters of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.

Scientists say shark numbers appear particularly robust since Hurricane Katrina, and they speculate that the increase is partly because of limited fishing after the storms of 2004 and 2005 and increased salinity in bays and inshore waters because of a two-year drought. The drought has increased salinity in Mobile Bay, Mississippi Sound and into the Delta, expanding the range of all saltwater creatures.


Read full article: 'Sharks are everywhere'

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) _ The Humane Society of the United States and two Maine groups want Saco officials to stop a charity shark-fishing tournament.

"It's a carnival. It's a carnival. The sharks are hauled up and kids are given a front-row seat," said John Grandy, vice president for wildlife at the Washington-based humane society.

The society, the Maine Animal Coalition and the Wildlife Alliance of Maine bought advertising space in a local newspaper and on an airplane banner to coincide with this week's two-day competition. The groups, which do not plan to picket the event, asked the city's mayor to cancel the contest.


Read full article: 'Critics protest Saco shark-fishing tourney'

Cape Town, South Africa (Aug 21, 2007 14:25 EST) The City of Cape Town has issued an urgent warning to all beach and ocean users of the seasonal increase in white sharks along the city's in-shore areas.

"Although white sharks are present in our waters all year round, we are approaching the time of the year when the possibility of encountering one of these animals is much greater," said Gregg Oelofse of the City's Environmental Resource Management Department, Tuesday.

According to scientific evidence, sharks change their habitats from predominantly using the seal colony in the winter to predominantly using the coastal inshore areas during the summer.


Read full article: 'South Africa Issues Great White Shark Alert As 'interaction' Season Approaches'

Moscow - Residents in Russia's far east have been warned to use caution in the sea after the capture of a great white shark like that made famous in the 1975 horror film Jaws, a newspaper said on Monday.

"Great White sharks have appeared off southern Sakhalin" island, the popular daily Novye Izvestiya said in a report from the far eastern port city of Vladivostok.


Read full article: 'Jaws fear grips Russian region'

A shark-fishing competition off Durban has been called off after protests from scientists and marine conservation groups.

The competition was due to start this weekend, with cash prizes for killing the biggest sharks.

However, the organisers have agreed to postpone the event for the time being, and said that the competition would be organised on a catch-and-release basis if another was held in future.



Read full article: 'Shark-fishing contest on hold'

When the first four-legged animals sprouted fingers and toes, they took an ancient genetic recipe and simply extended the cooking time, say University of Florida scientists writing in Wednesday’s issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

Even sharks — which have existed for more than half a billion years— have the recipe for fingers in their genetic cookbook — not to eat them, but to grow them.

While studying the mechanisms of development in shark embryos, UF scientists identified a spurt of genetic activity that is required for digit development in limbed animals.



Read full article: 'Conquest Of Land Began In Shark Genome'

Marine experts have criticised people who snapped wobbly film footage which, it was claimed, was evidence of a Great White shark swimming in Cornish waters.The Marine Conservation Society said that not only was the creature in question obviously a basking shark, but the person who caught it on film was clearly too close to a protected species.



Read full article: 'LEAVE BASKING SHARKS ALONE, SAY MARINE EXPERTS'