Andrew is a freelance marine biologist in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
Image taken from the South Florida shark fishing club online forum. Photographer undisclosed. I have blocked out the angler's face to protect his identity
Update: The angler who originally caught the shark has responded. Please see below.
On February 5th, while standing on a beach in Miami, a fisherman caught a 14 foot great hammerhead shark. According to his account, ”we had it beached within an hour of hooking it. The fish weighed too much her girth was huge. Just the 2 of us wasn’t enough to get it out of the water….We snapped some pictures with our dying camera, measured it at 170 inches and spent the next hour walking back and forth with HER reviving her…it swam off slow and steady”
While this might appear to be a simple case of catch-and-release recreational fishing, it is not. My lab and I are supporters of sustainable catch and release fishing. However, it is important to note that since January 1, 2012, great hammerheads (an IUCN Red List Endangered species) have been a protected species in Florida state waters and have additional legal protections. The Florida code indicates that:
“(1) No person shall harvest, possess, land, purchase, sell, or exchange any or any part of these species:
…(k) Great hammerhead – Sphyrna mokarran.…(3) “Harvest” means the catching or taking of a marine organism by any means whatsoever, followed by a reduction of such organism to possession. Marine organisms that are caught but immediately returned to the water free, alive, and unharmed are not harvested”
…(5) “Land,” when used in connection with the harvest of marine organisms, means the physical act of bringing the harvested organism ashore” Florida code section 68B-44 (Emphasis mine)
In this incident, the shark was brought ashore. We can infer from the statement “the fish weighed too much her girth was huge. Just the 2 of us wasn’t enough to get it out of the water” that the fisherman attempted to pull it all the way out of the water, but was unable to do so (an important legal distinction) . Instead, he ended up beaching it, bringing it so far out that it could not move or breathe. The angler did not immediately release the animal. According to the angler’s account, it was measured and photographed prior to the attempt to resuscitate it. The shark was not released alive and unharmed. By the angler’s own admission, it took over an hour of resuscitation before the animal was able to even swim away slowly.
As Mike points out, there is a bit of ambiguity in this law concerning the words “landed” and “immediately”. Fortunately, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has a best practices guide that clarifies the laws. Though it only references tarpon and grouper, I have been assured by colleagues at the FWC that it is broadly applicable to all saltwater fishes.
“Fish must be immediately released for several reasons. For example, there is no allowable harvest of goliath grouper and Nassau grouper in Florida…..When a fish isn’t allowed to be harvested, it must immediately be returned to the water free, alive, and unharmed. However, if a fish is allowed to be taken at a certain size limit, it’s okay to temporarily possess it to measure it, as long as it is measured immediately after removing it from the water, and the fish is then immediately returned to the water free, alive, and unharmed if it is not a legal-size fish….It is okay to take a picture of a fish that is not allowed to be harvested while it’s in the process of being released, but it still must be let go immediately and should not be held in lengthy poses just for the purpose of taking the picture. And it is never legal to hold on to or tow a fish that is not allowed to be harvested to a place to weigh or measure it ” FWC Saltwater fish best practices guide. (emphasis mine)
It is not legal to hold on to a fish that’s not allowed to be harvested just to measure it, which is what happened in this case according to the angler’s account. It is legal to photograph a restricted species as it is being released, which should occur immediately, but it is not legal to hold onto it just to photograph it. The photos show the angler posing with his catch, not the process of releasing it.
A call for leniency
As Chuck Bangley points out, “a surf fisherman caught a large, endangered, legally protected shark but also followed the best release practices he was aware of and showed some respect for the animal…. [he] seems to rather like the fish he’s angling, and therefore not a big part of the problem with hammerhead conservation. This particular fisherman likely made an honest mistake and, while the violation of the law certainly needs to be addressed, I hope they don’t come down too hard on [him].”
Bangley makes a good point- the angler made a good faith effort to release the animal unharmed. Personally, I’m more interested in using this incident as a teaching opportunity to promote more sustainable fishing practices for the future than in demonizing a young fishermen who wasn’t aware of the current laws and followed the best practices of which he was aware.
In the first eleven pages of comments on the South Florida shark fishing club online forum about this hammerhead, no one pointed out that the great hammerhead is a protected species in Florida waters. Clearly, more education about this issue is needed.
Samantha Whitcraft of Shark Savers, an organization that helped get the new FWC hammerhead protections passed, agrees. “From what we understand from this particular case, the fishermen ‘tried’ to execute a live catch & release; unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the shark survived but it does mean there is potential for education on how to do it better, especially given that the new FWC rule that protects hammerheads in Florida waters calls for education on this very subject.”
A teachable moment
“Great hammerhead sharks are listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List. They’ve suffered an estimated 80% population decline in the last 25 years. Their populations simply cannot sustain heavy fishing pressure. Large females, such as the one caught in this incident, are particularly critical if the population of great hammerheads is to recover,” said Dr. Neil Hammerschlag* , the Director of the University of Miami’s RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program.
According to Austin Gallagher*, a Ph.D. student in the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, “catch and release fishing relies upon the assumption that the captured fish survives when it is released.” Gallagher, a supporter of sustainable catch and release fishing who writes a column for Coastal Angler magazine, recently concluded a two year project focusing on how local species of sharks (including great hammerheads) respond to the stress of fishing and “fighting” a fisherman.
In his professional opinion, this great hammerhead shark did not survive this encounter. Gallagher said “You can tell that the animal is very rigid–almost like a rigor mortis. Hammerheads almost always stiffen up when they are dead or dying (moribund). The fact that it is listing to its side and rigid corroborates this. An animal can still swim away and die afterwards. We have seen this as well by using certain telemetry devices such as satellite transmitters that record post-release behavior….Walking an animal for a long period of time is indicative of the physiological consequences of stress. You may be able to get an animal swimming for a brief moment, but it certainly does not guarantee survival. This is a massive animal–the metabolic demands for even for basic swimming of a super predator are large, let alone after being angled and brought to shore for an extended period of time.”
According to Gallagher, “species, not individuals, show the most obvious differences with how they respond to stress. Hammerheads fight so rigorously that they become exhausted, their blood becomes acidic and loaded with carbon dioxide. Our data shows that this acts like a lethal cocktail for the animal.The hammerhead reacts so strongly to being hooked that the exercise of fighting becomes too much for the animal’s body to take. In this sense, the fight becomes anaerobic–fighting without proper oxygen. Hammerheads have very small mouths, which limits the amount of oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide release. At the same time, lactic acid builds up in the blood–a by-product of anaerobic exercise. We have measured disturbing concentrations of all of these parameters in hammerheads, even after fight times of less than 20 minutes. Mortality can happen in many ways–the animal can die of exhaustion minutes, days, and weeks after a release. But the animal can also become preyed upon by another shark that notices the change in swimming speed or behavior.”
Law enforcement’s reaction
We asked Melissa Recks, the FWC regional biologist for South Florida, for an official statement regarding this incident.
“Our division of law enforcement and our legal staff have reviewed this incident, and there’s not enough information in the pictures that a clear violation has occurred. Our educational staff is working on reaching out to shark anglers to clarify the best practices for handling prohibited species to ensure their survival,” she said.
Best practices
This incident likely resulted in the death of an endangered species. Future conservation-minded anglers who wish the ensure the survival of endangered great hammerheads should be aware that these animals absolutely cannot withstand a prolonged fight or being restrained for more than a few minutes. Fighting the animal to restrain it so that the hook can be removed is worse for the animal’s survival than merely cutting the line (which should be done as close to the hook as possible to minimize the amount of the line that the shark drags).
I politely and respectfully suggested this to the South Florida shark fishing club here, and the club’s President, William Fundora, replied:
“WE HAVE FIRST HAND EXPIERIENCE OVER 4 DECADES OF PRACTICING OUR SPORT AND NOT EVERY HAMMERHEAD WILL REACT THE SAME AFTER A PROLONGED FIGHT SOME WILL NEED WALKING AND RIGHTFULLY SO UNLESS YOU SUGGEST WE LET THE SHARK SINK AND DIE WHICH WOULD NOT BE GOOD POLICY FOR ANY FISH ANYWHERE.AGAIN WHEN WE FISH WE HAVE VERY LITTLE CONTROL AS TO WHAT SPECIES OF SHARK BITES OUR BAIT.WE OFTEN CATCH OTHER PROTECTED SPECIES….WE BELIEVE AND KNOW FROM OUR EXPIERIENCE THAT THE BEST RELEASE PRACTICE IS TO WALK AN EXHAUSTED SHARK UNTIL REGAINS IT’S STRENGTH AND SWIMS AWAY…YOU WANT SHARKS TO BE CUT LOOSE TO FLOUDER TO THE BOTTOM WIRE RIG AND STRONG LINE TRAILING AND YOU CALL “latest best practices” ??THINK WHAT YOU ARE SUGGESTING HERE DAVID.”
William, what I am suggesting is based on scientific data. Anglers, even experienced and conservation-minded anglers, can’t know what happens to the sharks after is swims away, and to assume that an animal survived because it swam away is not supported by scientific data.
Scientists can (and in many cases, do) know what happens to a shark after it swims away, thanks to telemetry data and stress physiology research. After a prolonged fight, great hammerhead sharks typically do not survive for long, even if they swim away. They don’t recover from stress as well as other shark species on a physiological level.
Walking the sharks to resuscitate is slightly better than “letting them sink” (which is not at all what I, or anyone else, suggested), as this process very slightly improves their ability to survive, at least in the short term. However, it is far better not to fight them for so long that they need to be resuscitated in the first place. As soon as you identify the animal on the other end of your line as a scalloped or great hammerhead shark, cut the line with as little line attached to the shark as possible. This will maximize the shark’s chance of survival. Also, it’s not just me saying this. The FWC best practices guide makes the exact same point:
“Anglers should also use common sense when releasing fish. Sometimes it’s better to safely handle a fish to carefully remove the hook so it can be released, and other times it’s best to cut the line as close to the hook as possible while the fish is in the water – especially if it’s large or agitated” (emphasis mine). Note that great hammerheads are both large and agitated.
Although the angler followed the best methods he was aware of and demonstrated a good-faith effort to respect the ocean and its creatures, by not following established best practices, a rare adult female member of an endangered species almost certainly died. This is a problem in of itself, and it has the potential to become a much bigger problem if not corrected.
I have invited members of the South Florida shark fishing club, fisheries managers, conservationists, and shark scientists to discuss this incident on this blog post. We all want the same thing, we all want there to be lots of fish (including sharks) in the ocean for a long time. It is my sincere hope that this incident, rather than turning into a shouting match between conservationists and anglers, can become a point of discussion about best practices for future sustainable use of marine resources. I also hope that it will draw attention to the rarely discussed practice of land-based shark fishing.
*As regular readers know, I am also a Ph.D. student in the RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program. Dr. Neil Hammerschlag is my major adviser, and Austin Gallagher is a senior graduate student in my lab. We believe that fishermen have the right to fish, but that fishing should be done in a sustainable manner. Much of our research aims to better inform anglers so that they can continue to enjoy their sport while having a smaller impact on the marine environment.
Response from the Angler who caught the shark:
I would first like to address the author of this article. It is titled “Florida angler catches (and likely kills) Endangered great hammerhead shark”
… your addition of the words within the parenthesis automatically sets in a tone of bias towards one set of views and against me which I feel slightly threatened. The pen is mightier than the sword and a great speaker has the ability to sway public opinion whether it be good or bad.
The author also states “The shark was not released alive and unharmed. By the angler’s own admission, it took over an hour of resuscitation before the animal was able to even swim away slowly.” Again there is total bias and a wave of negativity thrown upon me (an angler whom which put in vigorous efforts in the release of such a magnificent creature).
In more specific details: I wrote in a different post about the efforts it took me and my friend to release this fish. I quote myself: “That shark was an intelligent creature and more than likely older than myself. I tend to respect my elders and help them out to the best of my abilities. I could tell that this shark was aching and was trying to curl up into a C shape in order to stretch and that it was under a load of stress. Dan and I worked quickly to photograph, clip away as much of the rigging as possible, and get the shark back into the water flow. The tide was incoming so we started by walking the shark against the tide which helped the flow of water throughout its gills. We repeated a few laps of walking back and forth with the shark. Our backs were severely aching from the sheer weight of this fish. Dan reminded me that from the extensive fight the shark had probably built up a ton of lactic acid within its muscles; so the second part of my plan was to get those muscles moving as best as I could, I held the shark by the hammer-like structure being careful not to poke it in the eye and I swayed its head back and forth, un-stiffening muscles and getting even more water flowing throughout the gills. Dan was responsibly swaying its tail and tail-end of the sharks body to also help release lactic acid and stiffness. The shark broke free from us 3-times but we quickly retrieved it and continued the walking process because I did not feel the animal was strong enough to survive at the moment. We ran into several spotted eagle rays and southern stingrays in the process (one of which I came within inches of stepping on… so please don’t tell me this process was not harmful to me.)”
Commenting on this remark: “It is not legal to hold on to a fish that’s not allowed to be harvested just to measure it, which is what happened in this case according to the angler’s account.” Of course I wanted a picture because that is my passion (to catch, photograph, and release big fish) and of course I measured it and did so speedily. There is nothing illegal about measuring a fish, please read the laws on harvesting snook, snapper, grouper, and other such fish which must be measured and is encouraged to send in data to the FWC for their studies. Also scientists that catch, tag, and release sharks “hold on to a fish that’s not allowed to be harvested” and they do measure it.
In “A call for leniency” I thank the author and Chuck Bangley for the needed support and seeing the situations more or less in my own shoes.
In “A teachable moment” I would like to say and think that I am not the heavy fishing pressure on the hammerhead population, I have only caught one in my entire life and I ensured its survival. I hope this “heavy fishing pressure” is referring to the legal and illegal long-line fishermen and I hope that that shady business can be ended completely.
To Austin Gallagher: You have made an educated response based upon the best of your knowledge and it is true that this fish was under a high level of stress, but I would like to point out that your statement about “Hammerheads have very small mouths, which limits the amount of oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide release” is not entirely accurate because most sharks do not actually use their mouths for breathing because they can get their oxygen with their mouths closed. Sharks flush water over their gills which is on the externals of the shark so the size of their mouth has little to nothing to do with their ability to breath.
Towards the people who have commented on this blog, I see different sides and I thank the people that understood that I am trying to conserve sharks and protect shark fishing rights and I tried my best and I am completely positive that that shark is swimming around at this very moment. To the other people who commented completely against me, that is your opinion but I believe your opinion may have changed if you were there to witness my situation and I hope that you could make the same decisions as I did rather than cutting the line, many yards away when we realized it was a hammerhead which was exhausted and in shallow water and probably would have had no chance of swimming away on its own, I chose to take the extra 5-10 minutes to bring this shark close enough to get as much of my rigging off of this shark without harming it and getting it into the current and assisting it in swimming, breathing, and relieving it of lactic acid build up so it had the chance to make a full recovery and break free from my iron grip and swim off steadily with what I believed was the certainty of its survival.
The author of this article clearly has no knowledge of how potentially lethal cutting the line can be to the shark’s health. Studies have showed that fish (pelagics such as swordfish and tuna) that trail a length of line greater than their body length are at severe risk of tail-wrapping the line, and subsequently drowning. The same would happen to any shark trailing a length of line.
Mark handled his catch and RELEASE of the hammerhead in the best possible way for the health of the shark. Anglers cannot control what fish picks up their bait. Congrats Mark on the hammerhead again
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Cool. The you’ll have no problem linking to those studies so we can take a look at them.
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Santosh, can you please provide a link to the studies you are referencing?
Trailing a long length of fishing line can potentially be lethal for certain animals (this occurs in rare cases that Mark and a few others have pointed out), but fighting for more than 20 minutes builds up enough carbon dioxide and lactic acid to be almost certainly lethal.
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Well, you know what they say, when logic and reason aren’t on your side, try to use the law to silence truth.
But, since you asked so nicely, your comment was removed because it was off-topic, distracted from the discussion, and was demonstrably false. I suggest you familiarize yourself with US copyright laws regarding fair use in the reporting of news before you try to waste our time with ill-conceived libel.
But thank you for the accusation, as it only serves to prove that you have nothing substantive to contribute.
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For those looking for more technical info, it’s out there to find. Google is your friend. I had the advantage of working with several species of elasmos in controlled settings, and using those healthy animals to do a lot of baseline blood draws for various studies in the past. One of them was specific to measuring blood pH during normal vs stressful settings and looking at the ability of the shark to recover from a low pH after a struggle.
And just for informations sake: If you find a manatee in distress in FL waters, you are to call FWC’s manatee hotline. The public is not to try and attempt anything with them other than watching. Untrained ‘helping’ can make things worse very quickly.
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Look, I get it, you like to bully people into submission when you have nothing relevant to contribute, and I’m sure that sometimes works. But I don’t cave to tedious bullshit, and I don’t humor people who use legal threats to silence legitimate commentary. You’re wrong. Clearly, unambiguously, demonstrably wrong. You’re so ill-informed that you can’t even identify the actual copyright holder (hint: it’s not the forum that hosts content, nor the owner of said forum). But just to make it easier for you, here’s is Section 17 USC 107 of the US copyright act:
I can’t, at this point, tell if you’re an anti-fishing troll trying to make real, honest anglers look bad, or just an absolutely horrible representative of the sport. If the later is the case, than you are doing a disservice to people like Mark and Alex who have done a tremendous job arguing passionately and convincingly for their sport. If it is the former, then you can kindly fuck off.
Actually, either way, you’re done here. You’ve contributed nothing to the conversation.
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At several times throughout this discussion, Mark has repeated that is is confident that the shark is still alive. I’m very curious about what this confidence is based on other than noting that the shark swam away.
Mark, you are clearly an experienced angler who cares about the ocean. However, even the most experienced and thoughtful fishermen cannot possibly know what happens to a shark after it swims away unless it washes up dead on a beach or you tag it and someone recaptures it. That’s not a reflection on your abilities as a fishermen, it’s a question of having the right tools for a job. Fishing gear is designed to catch fish, not to track them after they swim away.
Austin’s study focused specifically on the question of what happens to sharks after they fight fishing gear. He measured the levels of carbon dioxide and lactic acid in their blood, and he tracked them with satellite tags. Austin can (and does) know what is likely to happen to sharks of certain species after they swim away because he applied the correct tools to answer this question.
His results are clear. Great hammerheads are particularly vulnerable to fishing capture stress. After fights as short as 20 minutes, great hammerheads can reach potentially lethal levels of carbon dioxide and lactic acid in their blood. They rarely recover from this stress events, unlike many other species of sharks which can recover. Satellite tracking data shows that even if great hammerheads swim away from where they were caught, they often die.
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My confidence comes from two events that I have seen. One is,(from the pier) a tiger shark ate a bait on a small rod and the inexperienced angler lost the shark, Within 30 minutes that tiger shark came back and ate my bait, I got the shark straight up and down and popped my 60lb mono so that the shark only trailed 4ft of light wire and a small hook in the lip. A little over a week later one of my friends went to the pier and caught the exact same shark.
The other event happened on the same pier, there had been a very large (12-13ft) hammerhead shark hanging around the pier, eating blacktip sharks, tarpon, and sting rays, as well as jacks, bonitas, and other fish brought up on fishermens lines. One of the first days the hammerhead got hooked on several light tackle reels and acted like it hadn’t even been hooked. a week later the hammer got hooked on heavier tackle, the angler lost it, but the hammer was still hanging around the pier. 2 weeks later one of my friends caught the hammer and popped off the line leaving a 6ft wire trailing behind its mouth. The hammer still stayed around for another week or two taking advantage of the rich food supply and then left bloated and ready to pup out. This hammer stayed around the pier for 2 months.
This hammer was hooked several times and caught once, and the time it was lost was over an hour fight and the time it was caught was over an hour fight. This shark showed no signs of dying anytime soon. Not every individual is the same as the whole. Every fight is different and some sharks are more used to being hooked than others. This is a very important variable in which Austin’s research has a limitation. For example, study a group of localized sharks completely away from civilization and a group of the same species in an area of many fishermen. After a shark has been caught and released, it is going to have memory of the event and will react differently than a shark that has never been caught before.
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Another thing I would like to mention about the research and data is that (I assume) Austin’s research is based on sharks caught via boat. The fights from boat vs. land are exceptionally different. For example, I was discussing the difference in fight between a bull shark caught on a boat vs. a beach with one of the best captains out of the Boynton area. From a boat the bull shark will dive down and stay towards the bottom and cannot be muscled up with the line and the boat has to be driven into shallow waters to get the shark to rise. From land in most areas the water is already shallow so the shark is not using energy to dive down, thus the fight is probably less stressful to the shark as it is not spending as much energy.
All research and data will have limiting factors and it is important to see those, especially when dealing with such complex matters as stress analysis.
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“Trash fish” prejudice is so ridiculous. It’s the most heartless thing in the world for humans to kill an animal just because they themselves don’t like it. To add suffering and cruelty to the deed is adding insult to injury, literally. I guess they think they know better than nature (or the Creator) which animals are “good” and which are “bad.” If if is native to the ecosystem, it plays a part in it, whether these numbskulls realize it or not.
The news of the hammerhead literally sickens me. In the video I saw, the shark indeed looked like it might be pregnant. The largest fish of a species are the most productive and the most successful of their kind. They are the very last individuals a true sportsman would want to kill. This female shark was likely 35-40 years old or more. Sad to see her go that way. Maybe the guy can hunt pregnant female elephants next.
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From what do you base your comments? A hammerhead shark is not a trash fish and I did not kill this shark nor did I have the intention to do so. Nor was there a video of this shark. I reckon you are mistaken.
…yet another person unappreciative of the efforts I went through to get the shark to swim off.
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Andrew, I think this is an good and realistic summary.
Hey David, I am trying to find more on Austin’s study on post release survivorship but it doesn’t appear to be published. I am interested specifically in fight time and blood chemistry vs. mortality for the great hammerhead that has been referred to several times in the comments. Any idea if this information is available yet?
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^ Was supposed to be in reply to:
“At the risk of putting words in my denticulous co-blogger’s mouth, I think the major take-home messages of this debate (at least as it pertains to how to deal with a hooked hammerhead) are:
A. Some sharks, particularly hammerheads, have a lower survival ratio following prolonged (or even relatively short) fights.
B. In cases where a hammerhead is positively identified early in the catch process, the angler needs to make a judgement call about whether or not to cut the line long, knowing that every extra minute spent trying to reel in the line decreases the chance of the hammerheads survival, but that trailing line may also be detrimental to survival.
C. In cases when a hammerhead is identified late in the catch process, after a prolonged fight has already taken place, the methods employed by Mark to walk and revive the shark before release are preferred, but the shark should not be taken out of the water and extra time should not be wasted measuring and posing for pictures (but there ain’t nothing wrong with getting a few snapshots during the revival process, provided it doesn’t detract from getting the animal back in the water).
Does that about sum it up?”
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I think that there is one common thread, all involved have a great concern for these wonderful animals.
There is one salient point that is missed here. In most cases when shark fishing, the angler uses a wire leader of some sort usually 5 to 2o feet long. The end of this leader is usually crimped to a swivel and then attached to a top shot, meaning a stronger test line, which is then attached to a lower test line, sometimes braided line. It is common to have a spider weight attached to a clasp at the point where the wire leader meets the top shot. This weight can be quite large with legs sticking out from the side.
The concept that there is just a length of line dragging behind a shark and that it most likely won’t get caught up on something is “possibly” not accurate. I would think that if I were catching this shark, Or another large endangered shark, I would most likely get the shark in as close as I could so as to cut the fish off at the leader. If not, this fish would in fast be dragging a small anchor around until the hook rusted out.
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