Ocean News

Greetings from Greenland!

15th June 2011

Save Our Seas Foundation supported scientist Dr. Peter G. Bushnell (Indiana University South Bend) has just finished his first trip to Greenland for his research project “Conservation and National History of the Greenland Shark”. For this purpose, Dr. Bushnell has caught 25 Greenland sharks during this first trip. All were measured and released, most of them were between 3,5 and 4 meters long. A dead shark was used to take tissue samples for age and growth (vertebral column and eye lens). Fishermen provided a small shark for tissue samples as well. Along with samples of a much larger shark already collected, Dr. Bushnell gets an idea of a size range on which to try and age the sharks with bomb-carbon analysis later. This size range raises some really interesting questions about these fascinating creatures- where are the big ones and where are the pups and juveniles, for instance? 4 sharks were tagged, and the tags will pop off again in September. Dr. Bushnell will keep us posted on this interesting research!