Baby Salmon Sharks Are Dying From A Mysterious Infection And Washing Ashore

August 9, 2007

Release from: Barry Parr
Coastsider

Baby salmon sharks have been washing up on Central Coast shores in the past month, reports the Santa Cruz Sentinel. This sounds like the shark we featured on our Coastsider a couple of days ago.

A dead salmon shark was found this week on the beach in Half Moon Bay. Researchers say they’ve seen more dead salmon sharks wash ashore this year than in the recent past. And it’s not the first time, although it’s the greatest numbers in recent memory, researchers say.

Every summer for the past decade, dead baby salmon sharks have inexplicably beached themselves, an uncommon occurrence because sharks tend to sink to the bottom of the ocean when they die.

Necropsies conducted at Stanford University and Long Marine Lab at UC Santa Cruz have shown that most of the salmon sharks had bacteria-induced brain infections at the time of their deaths, but shark experts still don’t know the source of the bacteria.

Sean Van Sommeran, executive director of the Santa Cruz-based Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, asked that if you catch a salmon shark, call him at 600-5214 or 459-9346.