Migrating Sharks Pass Along S.C. Coast

October 22, 2006

Release from: Associated Press

CHARLESTON - The cooler temperatures of fall tend to get swimmers out of the water off the S.C. coast.

That's probably just as well since that's when the sharks start migrating south through the state's waters.

On top of the winter migration of older sharks to warmer waters, this is the time of year that younger sharks move out of the estuaries where they tend to stay during the summer, mostly not to get eaten by bigger sharks, scientists say.

S.C. waters host 39 different shark species, from an occasional great white, to Atlantic sharpnose sharks, sandbar sharks, blacknose sharks, bonnethead sharks, finetooth sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks, said Bryan Frazier, a state Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist.

Plenty of sharks swim past Charleston's jetties, where the rock walls lining the shipping channel funnel predator and prey alike in and out of the harbor past Fort Sumter.

"The jetties, you're always going to catch one or two shark if you're bottom-fishing. But they're just babies. I've never caught a big one out there," said William Garmony of Barton & Burwell Fishing and Hunting in Mount Pleasant.

Fishing pressures in the 1990s caused a decline in the number of sharks, but the population appears to be rebuilding, DNR fisheries biologist Glenn Ulrich said.

Biologists studying marine life pull up sharks fairly often that are bigger than five feet, Frazier said.

When scientists go out to tag the sharks for population studies, Ulrich clamps the smaller sharks upside down between his legs as he works the circle hooks loose from the gaping jaws with serrated teeth.

But sharks anywhere near five feet long don't come aboard. They're tagged with a gaff and measured by sight estimate.