Ocean of Hope

Tag: Great White Shark

Deep Blue is the Largest Great White Shark Ever Filmed

Elasmobranchs, Sharks, sharks
great white shark
Great White Shark Image by skeeze from Pixabay

The following is about Deep Blue, a Great White Shark most recently filmed in the Hawaiian Islands in January of 2019. She is estimated to be 20 feet long, weigh 2.5 tons, and to be 50 years old. She’ll keep growing throughout her long life. She was last filmed 2,400 miles away off of Guadalupe Island, which is off of Baja California, Mexico in 2013. She also was photographed in 1999.

Aha! I smell it—rotting whale flesh. There’s no smell quite like it. It gets my stomach rumbling, as I haven’t eaten in a month since the last whale carcass I feasted upon.

I can smell blood from miles away. This is necessary in the open ocean. Some dead whales sink and become food for the deep sea life. Thankfully others float, which is where I eat them.

There it is! I’ve found the dead whale. There is a feeding hierarchy, which means the biggest sharks eat first. That means the puny tiger sharks, who had been previously feeding on the whale, sensed me coming and are now gone. They have left me with my own personal banquet!

Great white sharks don’t travel in packs, but occasionally we’ll meet one another at opportunistic feedings such as this. I’ve swum past 2 other large female great white sharks in the area. I’m sure they’ll show up later if they haven’t already eaten.

Mmm, yummy. I open my mouth full of triangular, serrated and sharp teeth and close down on the squishy fat and meat of the dead whale. Blood fills the water around me. Wow, it feels good to have some food in my belly.

I take several more bites, closing my eyes right before I strike. Fortunately this whale can’t bite back and hurt my eyes!

Then some strange creatures show up. They jump off a boat and swim down alongside me. Humans are not on my menu. Not enough fat to even bother with!

Lights flash all around me from the humans. They stay out of my way as I continue to feed. Soon, I’ve gotten my fill of whale flesh. I’ll come back tomorrow when I’ve had time to digest some of the meat.

My belly is so big that I feel like I’m going to burst! I may look pregnant, but I’m not right now. My dozen pups were born while I was off the coastal waters. Now I swim off into the deep blue ocean to digest my huge meal.

Also see 10 Tiger Shark Not-so-Scary Facts

The Endangered Animals of Finding Nemo: Great White Sharks

Endangered Animals of Finding Nemo, Sharks
endangered species in Finding Nemo
Bruce the Great White Shark from Finding Nemo

G’day mate, my name’s Bruce. I’m a Great White Shark. While I am great, heh heh, I am white only on my belly! The rest of me is gray. In Finding Nemo, my and chums and I had the motto, “Fish are friends, not food.” In real life I eat only meat. It gets messy sometimes since there are no barbies (BBQ’s) out in the ocean, mate!

Dory once sang, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” That applies to most of us sharks as we have to swim all the time in order to breathe. Some great white sharks swim great distances, like from Baja California to the Hawaiian islands. Some great white sharks join me off of Oz (Australia) from South Africa, mate! There are so few of us in all of the oceans that us males gotta swim that far to find any Sheilas (females)!

I am 20 feet long and weigh 5,000 pounds. I am as long as a small RV (recreational vehicle), and weigh as much as much as a car!

Since I can’t brush my teeth, mate, I continuously grow new teeth. That way my teeth do not get cavities or get blunt.

I can detect electricity in the seawater around me. This helps me find my food, as your heart gives off electricity, mate.

Though I am widely feared, more sharks are killed a year by humans (73-100 million) than humans killed by sharks (average of 5/year). My fins are very valuable to me as they help me steer, but lately it seems that humans want them more than us sharks! We are close to becoming an endangered species because of shark finning. For more on shark finning, check out previous post by Domino the Whale Shark
You can help by not consuming shark fin soup, visiting Sea Stewards, and watching the documentary Sharkwater.

Great White Shark’s Adventure at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Elasmobranchs, Sharks, sharks
great white shark, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Great White Shark photo by: Cherilyn Chin

Hello, I’m a Great White Shark. My ancestors and I have been roaming the oceans since before there were dinosaurs on earth. We have been the kings and queens of the sea…until now. Humans have made the oceans unsafe for me and my fellow sharks. Not only is the water we swim in dirty with garbage and chemical pollutants, but we are being fished and killed nearly to extinction because of shark finning.

And unlike most fish that are fully utilized, just our fins are cut off. This is because our fins are used in Asia for a delicacy called shark fin soup. To add insult to injury, finned sharks are most often thrown back in to ocean alive to die a slow, agonizing death. What hurts another shark hurts me too, as it is almost unbearable to see a fellow shark alive for days on end, and unable to swim due to missing fins.

Recently, I went on an exciting adventure. I was accidentally caught in a fishing net and taken on board a fishing boat. I was sure I was going to die like many of my friends before me. But I was lucky, and I was taken alive! I first went to a very large outdoor ocean pen where I could swim freely. I was fed fish off a stick. It was quite a treat to not have to catch my own food! How long will this luxury last, I kept wondering to myself.

I was later transported in a large tanker truck to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where I was put into the Open Sea tank. While the fat tuna in the tank looked tantalizing enough to eat, I enjoyed being fed salmon by a pole. I would have preferred to catch my own meals, but it was fun being lazy! I saw many people each day through the aquarium window. I loved the transfixed looks of awe on their faces when I swam past. The flashes were annoying, but luckily they didn’t happen very often (thank you docents!).

I felt myself growing larger each day. One day I sensed one of the yellowfin tuna getting weaker from sickness. Once I smell blood in the water, my primitive instincts kick in and chomp! I bit hard into that tuna. That got many of the marine biologists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium worried that I was getting too big for my britches, as well as too large for the tank.

Before I knew it, I was in a stretcher on my way back to the tanker transport truck. They stuck a satellite tag onto my back so they could track where I traveled in the ocean. The tag eventually popped off and sent information back to the marine biologists that told of my travels. But before the tag popped off, each time I felt the tag as I swam through the open ocean I remembered my great adventure to and from the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Also see 10 Cool Shark Facts: Your Questions Answered!

For more on sharks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium click here