Sea predator with 'large eyes' fished out for the first time in the Philippines
The Philippines saw its first sandbar shark fished out in 2020. The endangered species is slowly vanishing since it is high in demand but takes a long time to reproduce. World Trending
Scientists say a "large"-eyed ocean predator caught in the Philippines was the first time the creature was captured off the coast of the country. The fish is a sandbar shark, an endangered species, researchers said. This is the Philippines' “first verified report” of the shark, according to the Miami Herald.
A study published on March 20 in the peer-reviewed journal Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria describes the study carried out by a team of researchers who were "part of a larger project to re-survey the diversity of marine fishes” on the two islands of the Western Visayas.
The scientists focussed their attention on sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras, or ghost sharks. As part of the study, they visited fishermen and bought several specimens from them, one of which turned out to be the sandbar shark. The shark was fished out in 2020.
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They studied the DNA of the fish and found 14 species of sharks and rays.
Sandbar sharks are in danger of going extinct
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Sandbar sharks are an over-exploited fish since they are high in demand because of their "moderate size, palatable meat, and high fin-to-carcass ratio,” according to the Florida Museum. However, their reproduction cycle is quite long and they take a longer time to fully mature.
These fishes have “large” eyes, “dark gray” heads and fins with “dusky” tips, according to the photos carried in the study.
Scientists are now raising alarm about saving these fishes who seem to have been affected by the changing climate. They say that the sandbar sharks they found were 14 to 15 inches in length, much smaller than they are supposed to be. They say that this is an indication that there is "an urgent need to enact monitoring and management policies”.
Sandbar sharks are native to the Atlantic Ocean and the Indo-Pacific. They have heavy-set bodies and rounded snouts, shorter than an average shark's snout.
