Published 16:36 08 Sep 2017 GMT

Group of sharks found swimming in New York basement pool and it's not OK

Someone's been very naughty and has been keeping pet sharks at home. Not the inflatable kind: the kind with multiple rows of teeth. A group of 10 sharks have been found in a New York basement on August 23. They were found swimming in an above-ground pool 4.5 metres in diameter in a home in LaGrangeville, following a search by authorities. A team of Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found seven live sand tiger sharks, as well as two dead leopard sharks and one dead hammerhead shark in the relatively shallow pool. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/NYSDEC/status/905856374437023744]] The exotic shark species were likely kept for breeding and illegal sale. The sharks were unfazed by the presence of the ECOs, and were captured “with ease” to be measured, tagged and have blood samples taken. They were then transported in a truck fitted with plastic tanks, oxygen and climate control to the Long Island Aquarium. A veterinarian checked the health of the animals, and they will continue to be monitored in quarantine as the investigation continues. Sand tiger sharks, also known as grey nurse sharks, are a species listed as 'vulnerable' on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The seven sharks that were found were between 0.6 to 1.2 meters long, estimated to be babies aged between one and three years old. This species of shark can grow massively to 3.2 meters long, weighing around 200kg. Their life expectancy can be up to 16 years. An investigation is still underway, but the homeowner who kept the sharks in their basement has not yet been apprehended. The investigation came after a search warrant was granted for the residence after it was suspected that the homeowner was harbouring illegal wildlife. It is likely they could be facing criminal charges. A senior law enforcer for the Dutchess County SPCA, an animal welfare organisation in the area, said she's looked into over 4,000 cases and has come across incidents involving snakes, alligators, crocodiles and stingrays, but never sharks. LaGrangeville is approximately 75 miles north of New York City and about 50 miles from the ocean. Locals were surprised to hear that there were sharks in their relatively quiet neighbourhood. Sand tiger sharks are protected because of overfishing. They've experienced a significant drop in their population because they have low reproduction rates, not to mention their predictable habits that make them easy to fish. Like many other sharks, they are caught for their fins, meat, cartilage and liver oil to be sold as products for consumption. In some cultures, shark products are regarded as highly valuable ingredients to dishes served on special occasions, like shark fin soup. Finding the sharks in the New York basement is a bizarre case that could be linked to the illegal trade of shark products, although nothing has of yet been confirmed. The investigation is still ongoing at the moment.

uncategorised2 min(s) read

Published 13:42 01 Jan 2018 GMT

Experts are shocked to discover several frozen sharks washed up on US coastline

Tom Wood

It pretty much goes without saying that a lot of weird stuff happened in 2017. There was the whole Human Ken Doll saga (which, no doubt, will continue on into 2018), a whole bunch of alien incidents, and that one story about a model who nearly lost her vision after deciding to tattoo her eyeball. Well, that weirdness didn't die down towards the end of the year. If anything, it actually stepped up a level. On the 29th December, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy posted on Facebook to say that they had discovered a number of frozen sharks washed up in Brewster, Massachusetts. And they weren't exaggerating, either. Pictures from the conservation organization showed one thresher shark that had been affected so severely by the cold that it was too solid to dissect. It was described as "a male at around 14ft in length," that was "too frozen to attempt a necropsy." The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy explained that they "hauled the shark off the beach and it is currently thawing at NOAA Fisheries Service to be dissected later," adding that the specimen was, "a true sharkcicle!" This was actually the third thresher shark to wash up in the space of a week, which was surprising to many people - especially to those who didn't even know the species could be found in the area. "Wow! Is it common for thresher sharks to be in the area right now?" wrote one commenter. "I have never even heard of them being around the cape before." The conservancy replied that thresher sharks "are a common species [in Brewster] but offshore. These sharks were mostly [sic] likely moving to the south with the warmer water and got caught in the hook of Cape Cod." Unfortunately, due to the weather conditions around this time of year, some sharks do end up getting swept off course, and the team in Massachusetts do their best to rescue those that have been swept onto the shore. In a response to people asking what they can do to help out their efforts, the team said: "Thank you to everyone who has reached out asking how they can help. Simply put, we need the right equipment to keep the sharks and us safe. Shark strandings are difficult but always rewarding, whether we are responding to a deceased or living shark. While we sum it up in a few pictures, the team spent 4 hours in the elements yesterday collecting pounds if tissue that will be used to better understand these events." Temperatures in the area are at a record-breaking low at the moment, so it's no surprise that incidents like this are occurring. Due to climate change and other environmental factors, the temperature in Cape Cod is predicted to drop to around -12C (10.4F) in the next couple of days, and those conditions just aren't habitable for thresher sharks. Though we might often consider sharks to be dangerous and vicious, we must also remember that they are vulnerable.

us4 min(s) read

Published 09:05 21 Aug 2026 GMT

Boy, 11, finds huge tooth of Megalodon extinct for millions of years

Asiya Ali

An 11-year-old boy made the discovery of a lifetime while walking along a New Jersey beach.

Bo Bowers was on vacation in Sea Isle City with his father, Michael, when the pair found the four-inch megalodon tooth wedged among rocks on the beach.

The fossil belonged to the largest shark known to have ever lived, and experts say only a handful of megalodon teeth have been recorded along New Jersey's coastline.

Michael Bowers, 42, and his 11-year-old son Bo found the prehistoric shark tooth at a Sea Isle beach. Credit: Facebook/Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center

The boy was able to reach the fossil

The father and son had been digging through rocks when they spotted the unusual object inside a narrow opening.

Michael, 42, from Pittsburgh, couldn't fit his hand into the gap, but Bo's hands were small enough to reach inside and pull the tooth free.

"I was like shocked and like excited at the same time," Bo said, per NBC Philadelphia.

His father was also shocked by what they had stumbled across.

"I never in a million years would have guessed that we would have found something like this. My son was speechless," Michael said, as cited by The Telegraph.

"It’s on my bucket list of stuff to find," he continued to NJ.com. "My knees were shaking."

The family showed the fossil to experts at the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center and the New Jersey State Museum, where it was confirmed to be a real megalodon tooth.

Daniel Lovino of the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center said: "It's an amazing sighting. That family's really lucky."

"There's only a handful of recorded findings of Megalodon teeth off of New Jersey's coastline," Lovino added.

Dana Ehret, natural history curator at the New Jersey State Museum, said fewer than five megalodon teeth have been found in the state.

Megalodon was the largest shark to ever live. Credit: Facebook / Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center

The tooth was in great condition

Matt Remuzzi of the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center was impressed by the fossil's condition.

"It is actually the best condition Megalodon tooth I've ever seen. It was pretty incredible," Remuzzi said.

The tooth also proved substantial once the family had it in their hands. "It's actually a lot heavier than we both thought it would be," Michael said.

One noticeable chip may even offer a clue about what happened while the shark was still alive.

"This big chip on the end, they say it was probably from it biting into something, hitting the bone and it chipped it," Michael said.

Researchers believe the fossil may have been dredged from the ocean during a beach replenishment project carried out by the US Army Corps of Engineers in July before eventually being discovered by Bo.

The megalodon was an ancient predator that has been extinct for around 3.6 million years. Credit: DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY / Getty

Megalodons disappeared millions of years ago

Megalodons were huge carnivorous sharks that lived in warm tropical and subtropical waters around the world.

Estimates cited in the supplied material put the biggest specimens at around 24.3 meters long and up to 94 tons, making them far larger than the largest recorded great white shark and even longer than today's largest whale sharks.

Their diet primarily consisted of large marine mammals, including baleen and toothed whales, dolphins, and seals.

Research published in Science Advances has suggested a megalodon's huge jaws could have consumed a creature the size of a killer whale in just five bites.

Scientists also believe the predator could swim at speeds of up to 3.5 kilometers per hour.

Research suggests megalodons vanished by the close of the Pliocene as the planet entered a period of global cooling, with the last of the species estimated to have died at least 3.6 million years ago.

Bo and his family now plan to hold onto their extremely rare piece of prehistoric history.

"A bucket list item for sure," Michael said.

Featured image credit: Facebook/Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center

Tags:

megalodon shark us news animals

uncategorised3 min(s) read

Published 10:22 14 Dec 2017 GMT

A living 512-year-old shark has just been caught by marine biologists

Tom Wood

There's no getting around the fact that the ocean is a terrifying place. It's cold, it's dark, and - considering that around 95 per cent of it still remains undiscovered - it's full of creatures that we have no idea even exist. Amongst the rumored Krackens and sea monsters, however, there are some familiar animals that we have come into contact with before. The likes of anglerfish, vampire squid, and giant spider crabs (look them up if you fancy some nightmare fuel at any point today) are all known to us surface-dwellers by now, but that doesn't mean they can't still hold some secrets we're unaware of. The Greenland Shark, a species found in the sub-zero waters of the Arctic, is one such secretive creature - and it's managed to stay deep beneath the ocean for over half a millennia. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba2QKc5HKH4/?taken-by=juniel85]] A group of scientists found the shark, which is said to weigh more than a tonne, along with 27 others. This particular one was bigger than any of the others, though, which is significant because the sharks only grow one centimeter per year. Judging by its full 18-foot body length, the creature could possibly have been born in as early as 1505 - making it older than William Shakespeare, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the USA. Not only does this make the shark fascinating in terms of studying the longevity of ocean life, it's also useful for analyzing how the oceans have changed over this period. Plus, since a lot of the sharks in this particular group have been around since before the industrial revolution and the dawn of large-scale commercial fishing, their history will be a much more reliable source of information than any other accounts we already have. However, researchers have conceded that there is a possibility the giant fish is younger. At the very least, it could be 272 years old, but that still makes it the oldest living vertebrate species in existence. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BYu1ya9Hln3/?taken-by=juniel85]] Professor Kim Praebel, who led the hunt for the sharks, said that the animals were essentially "living time capsules" which could help us understand more about the history of our oceans. According to the professor, studying the sharks is "important", because it will allow researchers to "develop appropriate conservation actions for this important species.” Despite its outstanding age, there have been other, more ancient sea creatures than the Greenland shark discovered in the past. Antarctic Sponges, for example, are known to have lifespans exceeding 1,000 years, and the Turritopsis Nutricula jellyfish are considered to be immortal. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BXBpZ2BHZwG/?taken-by=juniel85]] Even though we've known about their existence for some time now, there is still a lot to be discovered about the Greenland shark. We're not even entirely sure how they hunt or what they eat, as the remains of horses and reindeer have been found in their stomachs before. Hopefully, a study of the group most recently found will provide more answers about how the species have survived for so long, and a study of their DNA and bones will help to give a more accurate analysis of their ages.

lifestyle2 min(s) read

Published 10:37 19 Apr 2024 GMT

Great white shark carcass discovered in creepy abandoned wildlife park

Nasima Khatun

When Rosie the Great White shark first got caught up in a family's tuna-fishing net in 1997, she probably never thought she would go on a journey that spanned the oceans and took her onto dry land.

But that's exactly what happened to her when she became a famous tourist attraction at the Wildlife Wonderland theme park in Australia.

As per All That's Interesting, the incredible marine animal was transported to the park in a refrigerated truck, where she spent more than a decade in a "custom tank flooded with formaldehyde."

For those of you who might not be aware, formaldehyde is a colorless and odorless substance that can help to preserve the bodies of animals.

Rosie became the ultimate hot spot at the theme park before it ultimately shut down in 2012.

While you would assume that someone probably transported the shark carcass to another location where it could continue to be admired, unfortunately, it was left behind and forgotten until an urban explorer stumbled across it.

In 2018, Luke McPherson uploaded a video to his YouTube channel titled 'Abandoned Australian Wildlife Park. Decaying, left to rot' and since then, the clip has been viewed over 16 million times.

Check out Luke's video below (Rosie appears at around 18:00):

However, while the video was supposed to raise awareness about an issue, it instead invited vandals and hooligans into the abandoned property where they ended up graffitiing the tank as well as trying to throw things into the liquid.

When the tank eventually started leaking, local authorities were forced to release a statement warning people about the toxic fumes.

"The fumes were so bad you couldn’t last longer than a minute in that room, the formaldehyde must have been evaporating," McPherson said as per The Sun. "The tank was huge and in bad condition, with a rusting metal frame and smashed panels of glass and trash thrown inside. Once I got the light behind the tank I was like ‘wow, that’s creepy.'"

Then came the news that Rosie would be destroyed in order to stop the vandals' behavior, however, this sparked a social media movement to "Save Rosie" and eventually, the owner of the Crystal World and Prehistoric Journeys Exhibition Center, Tom Kapitany transported and re-displayed the animal himself.

And that's where she remains.

"It’s a remarkable thing, for starters with all the vandalism and everything that has happened to the actual wildlife park and to Rosie’s tank," said Shane McAlister, an employee at the exhibition center. "I had to go down there and do a patrol and make sure no delinquents were going to vandalize Rosie’s tank any further."

Rosie the Shark still remains a tourist attraction to this day and her official Facebook page has over 54,000 followers.

Featured image credit: Dan Kitwood / Getty

Tags:

rosie the great white shark chemical tank decomposition cadaver

stories1 min(s) read

Published 15:03 22 Feb 2018 GMT

Thousands of sharks are swimming past Florida and the footage is terrifying

Tom Wood

I know some people with serious shark phobias; the kind that even if you called "shark!" in a swimming pool they would look around for the danger. I don't feel this fear to the same level, but it's hard not to be a little creeped out when you see them in nature documentaries hunting for food. There's something about their staring eyes and rows of jagged teeth that gets under your skin.

And that's just one of them. I don't fancy my chances getting caught out in the water with a shark nearby, but if there was more than one I would be royally screwed, that's for certain. Now, imagine that instead of a trio of sharks to deal with, you had an entire swarm of them, with numbers in the thousands. After reading this, you may be put off any vacations to Florida's beaches any time soon.

[[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BQk3rgiB1Yp/?taken-by=sharkmigration]]

In an annual trip, thousands of Blacktip Sharks migrate past the east coast of Florida. These sharks range from five to six feet in length and weigh in between 60 and 80 pounds.

While they're normally wary of humans, this species can become aggressive when in the presence of food and have been known for a number of attacks on people.

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/BlacktipH/status/966301369966780416/]]

With countless Blacktip sharks migrating along the east coast, the region can become a little dangerous. Add to that the fact that they stick close to the beaches as they follow schools of mullet and other baitfish, and you have a problem for many beachgoers. These particular sharks will keep to themselves for the most part, but can cause a problem for Spring Breakers partying on the beaches and in the ocean.

"The shark migration normally peaks this time of year," NBC Meterologist and surf forecaster James Wieland wrote in a tweet, which included a video of the sharks. "Shark experts say just offshore is the "shark super-highway" where thousands of sharks are on the move this time of year".

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/SurfnWeatherman/status/965064629528522753]]

The YouTube channel BlacktipH Fishing also has some footage of this natural phenomenon. Hosted by extreme angler Josh Jorgensen, who regularly films big game fishing, you can see the Blacktip sharks from the overhead view of a drone. But what's surprising about this footage is the appearance of giant Hammerhead sharks that are nearly three times the size of the Blacktips, hunting the smaller sharks.

"One of the most amazing sights that I've ever seen is a giant great hammerhead shark hunting blacktip sharks," Josh wrote. "This past winter, I filmed some incredible drone footage of giant great hammerheads hunting blacktip sharks in the shallow coastal waters of Florida."

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgBhlu2p70w]]

He also noted that there were multiple hammerhead sharks sighted, ranging between 12 and 14 feet long, and the biggest hammerhead estimated to weigh 1000lbs. Without Hammerheads picking them off, the migration can be huge, with 10,000 or more of them swimming together all at once.

How does that beach holiday sound now?

Tags:

parmesan