Thresher sharks spotted off the Seacoast. But don't worry, you're not on the menu!
This week, while fishing rod and reel, my husband had a lengthy encounter with a thresher shark. It appeared to be a juvenile, about 6 feet, with an additional 3-foot tail fin. The shark kept attacking fish that David was reeling in, but the shark couldn't seem to bite them off the line. This occurred several times over about 30 minutes when the shark just left. It seems the shark just let the fish go. It seemed to have decided to wait for David to throw back any undersized fish, fill up on them, and then leave the area.
This was only the second time in half a century that David had encountered a thresher. The shark's behavior was a little puzzling.
I don't think the shark quite knew what to do with a fish that was actively trying to get away— like the ones being reeled in on a fishing rod.
Thresher sharks have a unique way of stalking their prey. Until about a decade ago, scientists had no proof of how a thresher used its tail. But finally, they filmed one as it attacked a school of fish. Like a swordfish, the thresher swims into the middle of a school of fish and then whacks their tail back and forth, stunning the fish and creating bubbles and confusion. They then swim through the school and munch down on the stunned fish. Thus, a juvenile thresher may not be accustomed to a fish that actively tries to get away like the one at the end of David's line. Just a guess, but it seems logical to me.
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Thresher sharks have a unique fin construction. Sharks have no bones in their bodies as they are cartilaginous fish, meaning they have a skeleton made of cartilage. They are efficient eating machines. With their flexible skeleton, their entire body has evolved to be a sleek stealth predator. In the case of thresher sharks, their top caudal fin (top of the tail fin) has elongated to about half the length of their body. This has become a weapon to stun their prey. These animals have been known to hunt in pairs and are very efficient at herding a school of fish and then stunning them into submission. On a positive note, threshers are not considered to be a danger to humans. They prefer schools of fish. Lucky us!
According to NOAA Fisheries, Atlantic threshers can live up to 50 years, which is quite long for a shark. The females mature at about 9 feet, which appears to be around 5 years, older than most sharks. They give birth to small numbers of live young. Those young develop inside the female for a full 9 months before birth. The same gestation period as humans!
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Threshers are not named for the thrashing motion of their tail, as many assume. Instead, their name comes from a farming technique that separates wheat from chaff. A threshing machine whips back and forth—much like the shark's tail fin. The tail also resembles a scythe, traditionally used to cut hay with a similar swinging motion.
Back to David's fishing line. Most threshers are not hooked with a normal hook and line, but they usually are caught with the line wrapped around their tail and, boy, do they fight. This leads me to believe that David's shark was behaving normally by spitting out the fish when they were reeled in. Threshers are not normally caught in commercial fisheries except as a bycatch. They are regulated but not in danger of overfishing.
According to NOAA, they migrate long distances following plankton blooms, which attract the schools of fish they feed on.
Several years ago, I was down on the Hampton Pier before dawn pumping water for my tanks. Half asleep, I stumbled over something on the pier. After tripping over it repeatedly, it finally dawned on me that it could be the tail fin of a thresher shark. I threw it into the back of the truck and drove home. When I arrived, I threw it on the driveway as it was really smelly and went off to do talks in a school.
When I got home that day, my husband sighed, 'I see you found it.' I knew he meant the shark tail, as I was always bringing strange things home. He confirmed that it was a thresher shark. And that it had been lying on the pier for over a week. None of the commercial fishermen would touch it as they were not allowed to catch threshers. It had been left there by a recreational fisherman over the weekend.
It is now hanging on the wall in the Oceanarium for our visitors to touch. Oh yeah, don't worry, the smell is gone!
Ellen Goethel is a marine biologist and the owner of Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium at 367 Ocean Blvd. at Hampton Beach.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Thresher sharks spotted off the Seacoast — But they're not after you
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