KCBA - Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz - News Weather-After 15 Hours in Captivity Rare Shark Get Released
Member Center:
MONTEREY, Calif- An uncommon deep-water prickly shark collected late Tuesday night was released in Monterey Bay about 15 hours after it was placed on exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Staff biologists monitoring its condition on exhibit observed that it appeared to be too buoyant to swim easily, and decided that it was in the shark's best interest to return it to the wild as quickly as possible.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the shark was transported in the aquarium's collecting boat, the Lucile, and was released at the surface in waters 250 feet deep offshore of the City of Marina. Observers on the boat said it swam off strongly.
The shark carries an electronic data tag that is programmed to pop free from the shark within six months. If the tag functions properly, it will report back with data on where the prickly shark traveled, and the water depths and temperatures it favored.
For only the second time ever, an odd-looking deep-water prickly shark, Echinorhinus cookei, had been collected and placed on exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The shark, found around the Pacific Rim at depths of to 3,000 feet, was collected at the head of the Monterey submarine canyon off Moss Landing - an area where the aquarium had supported research by a Moss Landing Research Laboratories graduate student who documented daily migrations of prickly sharks from the deep waters of the canyon to the shallows of the canyon head.
The 6-foot, 8-inch male weighs 189 pounds. It is only the second of its species ever to be kept at an aquarium. Little is known about the biology and behavior of prickly sharks in the wild.
The prickly shark (related to the bramble shark) has rough, thornlike spines on the scales of its upper body. Its other distinctive features are two dorsal fins near the tale, rather than the single prominent fin associated with many sharks. A sluggish bottom-dweller, it feeds on fishes, other sharks, octopus, squid and crustaceans. It carries fertilized eggs inside its body but gives birth to live young.
