11-foot hammerhead shark washes up on Florida beachAn 11-foot hammerhead shark washed up on a beach in southern Florida, much to beachgoers' surprise.
Visitors at Pompano Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale, encountered the shark's corpse on April 6, according to CNN affiliate WPLG.
A team of scientists from the American Shark Conservancy took samples and identified the shark as a female great hammerhead, after moving the body away from onlookers.
Hannah Medd, a conservation scientist and the founder of the American Shark Conservancy, told CNN that she and her team took the shark's measurements as well as fin clippings to test its DNA and muscle tissue for biopsies. The female was pregnant and weighed around 500 lbs, she said.
The Conservancy, which has a license to take samples from protected species like the hammerhead shark, was alerted to the animal by the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program, which surveys for turtle nests on beaches. A member of the team had encountered the body with a hook in its mouth. The "specific type of hook usually indicates someone was fishing for a large animal like a hammerhead," Medd said.
"This species, in particular, is quite susceptible to stress," she said.
Medd explained that a small community of recreational fishermen target sharks for catch-and-release, which is legal in Florida, although the sharks cannot be harvested. But the stress of catch-and-release, combined with wounds from fishing hooks, can sometimes lead to death.
"This is a pretty rare event," Medd said. "We get a call for maybe one to four a year [hammerheads] that have washed back up."
She said that her team has advocated for best catch-and-release practices, like using stronger fishing gear, which reduces the "fight time" during which the sharks are struggling with fishermen. Less fight time means less chance of injury or mortality.
"These sharks are really good at fighting," she said. "That's why the anglers like to catch them -- it's exciting.".................
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/16/us/florida-hammerhead-shark-scn-trnd/index.html
