sharkphobia.com

SharkPhobia.com - for everything shark, especially the Great White Shark

Are you fascinated by sharks? Are you in awe of the Great White Shark? Do you like to research sharks and learn how and why sharks attack people? Did you know there are nearly 400 species of sharks?

If you answered 'yes' to any of those questions, then you've come to the right place. On this site, you will find shark attack news and video, links to cool shark merchandise and shark movies and books (see links at right) and links to the Discovery Channel's Shark Week web site so you can stay informed on everything shark! Learn about the fascinating ocean predator tagging project and see where the sharks and other sea creatures are in the ocean right now . . . read on!

Like many of you, I saw the movie "Jaws" at the ripe old age of 7 and those images and that music - "duh-dunt, duh-dunt" - never left my memory. I can't seem to get in the water or even look at it without at least one image from that movie popping into my head; not to mention that music! How can two little syllables bring such chills up your spine?! While I am a certified scuba diver, I am always wary of sharks. I am also fascinated by them, especially the Great White, which has me glued to the TV during The Discovery Channel's "Shark Week." I admire the shark conservationists out there, people like elasmodiver and the researchers at TOPP and the Monterey Bay Aquarium; I understand the need for sharks in the ecosystem. I do believe that we all need better education about sharks and I am totally fascinated by the research and tagging of the great white shark and other ocean creatures! (see more info on this below)

No matter how much I learn about sharks, whenever I find myself swimming at the surface of the water,just like the opening scene in Jaws, I start hearing that 'duh-dunt' 'duh-dunt' music in my head! I imagine what I look like from below the surface with my feet dangling down. Yikes! I cannot stand that feeling! Just sticking my big toe in the water conjures up scenes from Jaws. I manage to get in the water to scuba dive because there is at least the comfort of being able to see what is around you. In fact, the first thing I do when I get in the water, is stick my head under and scan the area to see what's 'down there.' You should see my eyes through my scuba mask - big as silver dollars! In fact, that's me in the photo - I wonder what is lurking in the depths below?

Speaking of seeing what's 'down there,' I was recently at the Atlantis hotel in the Bahamas and visited the fish and shark aquarium there. I learned something that was quite eye-opening (er, uh, not eye-opening). I saw a really large shark near the glass in the tank and as I watched him swim away, he got no more than 10' or 15' feet from me and "poof" I could no longer see him and this was in a pretty clear tank! He blended right into the background. It gave me chills thinking of all the times I had been diving 30 to 90 feet down and all the sharks or other fish that could have been around me and I just couldn't see them. You think you can see far off in the distance but I learned that day that they blend so well into the background that they may be around you and you just can't see them! Spooky!

The only sharks I have seen in person in the wild are the nurse shark and the caribbean reef shark. I will not even get in water known to be a place where Great White sharks roam. From what I have learned, Great White Sharks tend to stay in cold ocean waters - this is why I only dive in the warm caribbean waters! I cannot even believe that some people go on dives that specifically seek out Great White Sharks, usually by chumming the waters. "Hello, you didn't see Jaws, did you?"

Anyway, I mentioned earlier that there are researchers who tag Great White Sharks and other sea dwellers and the data is fascinating. I had no idea sharks, turtles and fish traveled so far. In fact, the animated sea creatures to the left are some of the animals that have been tagged. Click on the link to see where they are in the ocean right now! See below for more info on the tagging project.

Latest Shark Attack News

Great White Shark Attack
When: April 2008
Where: Solano Beach in California (just north of San Diego)
Who: Triathlete loses his life after Great White attacks
What: Great White Shark attacks man as he trains for triathlon.
Southern California beaches within several miles in each direction
were closed for fear of public safety.

Great White Shark Info & Videos

Great White Shark - video powered by Metacafe

Did you know that the Great White Shark can detect one drop of blood in 25 gallons of water? Did you know Great White Sharks have 3,000 teeth and they don't even chew their food?

Did you know that Great White sharks (also called White Sharks) can grow to 20 feet in length and weigh up to 2 tons? Their average lifespan is 25 years.

Great White Sharks thrive in cold waters. (This is why I only dive in the warm Caribbean!). The 3 most prevalent locations for Great White Sharks are:

1. California
2. Australia
3. South Africa

Some really cool new research has been made in the last decade due to the amazing efforts of researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Tagging of Pacific Predators project. The researchers tag and then track adult white sharks and juvenile white sharks. The juvenile Great Whites are tagged off Malibu, California. The adult Great Whites are tagged at the Farallon Islands, about 20 miles west of San Francisco, and at Año Nuevo, a rocky point about halfway between San Francisco and Santa Cruz.

To tag the sharks, researchers lure Great White Sharks near their boat with a fake seal decoy. When the shark nears the boat, they use a long pole to tag the shark's fin with a $3,500 battery-powered tag that transmits the shark's location to a satellite. The tag also transmits data about depth traveled and other information. The tags are programmed to come off the shark after so many months and float to the surface where, hopefully, they can be recovered. In fact, there's a reward if you find one!

From the numerous sharks that have been tagged so far, researchers have learned that white sharks spend their early years along the coasts of Southern California and Baja, feeding on fish. Then as adults, they travel to areas north and south of San Francisco and prey on seals and sea lions. (this is why the juvenile sharks are tagged near Malibu and the adult sharks are tagged near San Francisco - that's where they hang out!)

One of the most exciting discoveries that still has researchers perplexed is that the Great White Sharks that were tagged take an annual journey to a remote area in the pacific ocean, about midway between Baja California and Hawaii, and congregate there for months during the spring and summer. That's about a 1,500 mile journey from California! Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium have dubbed this area the "White Shark Cafe." Some of the sharks even went all the way to Hawaii for the summer. Researchers observed that during these trans-pacific journeys, the sharks tend to stay near the surface but also sometimes descend for hours at a time into really deep waters. The sharks also have been observed to "yo-yo" dive where they dive really deep, come back up to the surface and then dive deep again - doing this over and over again.

The tagged sharks swim back to the California coast in the fall.

Sources: Monterey Bay Aquarium, TOPP, SignOnSanDiego

Hawaiian tourists get the thrill of their life on a "Hawaii Shark Encounters" trip when a Great White Shark appears, which they say is a rare thing in Hawaii (although the TOPP tagged sharks show they do travel to Hawaii for the summer!). One of the crew, Jimmy Hall, climbed out of the shark cage and not only swam with the Great White, but he reached out and touched her!

Save The Oceans, Save The Planet

Oh my gosh! Have you heard about the "garbage island" where trash and plastic from around the world seems to collect? What are we going to do to stop this? What can you do to help?

Watch the video below of researchers on a journey to the middle of the ocean in search of "garbage island."

Click here to see the whole series of videos on "garbage island" by VBS.tv.

Beach & Scuba Travel Info

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