New nursery used by hammerhead sharks found near Galapagos islands

The Ecuadoran national park announced on Friday (December 16) that a third nursery used by scalloped hammerhead sharks to raise their pups has been found of the Galapagos Islands. It is a boon for the species considered critically endangered.

"It is very important to find these new breeding areas, especially for the hammerhead shark, because it is an iconic species for the Galapagos, one that is critically endangered," Eduardo Espinoza, a ranger at the Galapagos National Park, said in a statement.

The Galapagos comprise of 13 major islands. After months of travelling around the islands Espinoza and other investigators discovered the nursery off Isabela, the largest of the islands.

The park said it hopes the research leads the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) "to include these nurseries in the listing of important areas for the conservation of sharks," which now is a special category of protection.

Scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna Lewini) prefer shallow nurseries to raise their pups in protected conditions. The shark is an open-water hunter but has been hard hit by commercial fishing to satisfy an appetite in East Asia for its fins.

The park has not revealed the specific locations for the three nurseries in order to protect the sharks.

Some of the sharks at the nurseries have been tagged so that scientists can monitor their migration patterns and determine how they interact with sharks elsewhere.

The Galapagos Marine Reserve, one of the largest and most diverse in the world, covers an area of 198,000 square kilometers (76,450 square miles, contains some 30 species of sharks, among them the blacktip shark, which also has nurseries there.
Concentrations of sharks in its waters are believed to be the most dense in the world.

(With inputs from agencies)

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