October 24, 2014 — The population of large sharks have dropped significantly since the 1980s, posing a serious concern for fisheries and ecosystem management. This week on the Down East Journal, we speak to Coastal Scientist Dr. Joel Fodrie about his award winning research and the impact the decline of large sharks is having off the coast of North Carolina.
On October 9th, beachgoers at Cape Lookout were shocked when more than a hundred brown and sandbar sharks went into a feeding frenzy just feet away from where they were standing. Fortunately, Donnie Griggs who frequents Cape Lookout was filming and later it was posted to YouTube by Brian Recker. The video went viral. It’s received over 5 million views and captured media attention around the country. Assistant Professor of Fisheries Ecology Dr. Joel Fodrie has seen the video and says this time of year, Cape Lookout is popular feeding ground for sharks.
"This happened to be an amazing convergence of food and the sharks to whip them into a frenzy. I hope that people are just impressed by what nature has to offer to enrich our lives here on the coast.”
While populations of small sharks, like the ones seen in the video are plentiful, it’s becoming increasingly rare to catch large sharks off the coast of North Carolina and elsewhere. Dr. Fodrie observed a significant decline in the number of large shark species over the past three decades using data from fishing tournaments in the Gulf of Mexico since the early 20th century.
“When all three statewide tournaments that we collected data from, shark sizes increased from the early 1920s and 30s all the way up to the 1980s. And in the mid-1980s the size of sharks that were winning these tournaments declined rapidly and for the last 30 years, the size of sharks winning these tournaments are about one quarter the size of the sharks that won in the 70s and 80s.”
Read the full story and listen to the audio from Public Radio East