Shark Dies After Giving Birth
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
Fishermen netted a 9-foot, 5-inch pregnant hammerhead shark off Kailua Beach early yesterday morning and brought it ashore after helping with the delivery of pups. The shark died before reaching the beach, but its three pups were released into the water…
[source]
awww, shark orphans
can sharks live without their mothers? For some reason I have a vague memory of them being mammals, and mammals need their mammas, don’t they?
How sad.
So typical of people — “Hey, lets go and kill sharks.” But they get cold feet when the reality of what they’re doing hits home when the net a pregnant one.
“Helped with the delivery of shark pups”…. In other words, they sliced her open and three pups fell out of her.
No, sharks are not mammals, they are fish. The young do not need their mothers. They are independant from birth (or hatching) as all are not born live directly from the mother.
The term ‘mother’ is used loosely as the pups are not eaten by her only because her digestive system is shut down during labor and delivery. If she meets the pups later (and can catch them) she will eat them.
Sharks are kind of like giant guppies (guppies being one or two steps from the bottom of the water world food chain and sharks one, possibly two, from the top) with hundreds of replaceable sharp teeth, an appetite for almost anything, and travelling in groups with a dominance social order that is enforced by violence.