Dive Into Your Imagination

Ask a child what they love about the ocean and some will say dolphins, or "Nemo", yet overwhelming everyone screams SHARKS! We are fascinated by sharks! To the right you see a grey reef shark up close and personal. Sharks have existed for more than 450 million years! But because they are made of cartilage...do you know what cartilage is? Touch your ears. Touch your nose. Touch your ears...that is cartilage! Cartilage does not fossilize so how do you think we know they lived for so long?

That's right! Because of their teeth! There are more than 370 species of sharks and 400 species of rays. They are all in a family of fish called elasmobranchs. The skeletons of sharks and rays are more rubbery than bony fish because cartilage is softer, yet sharks and rays are both fish. There are sharks with 5, 6 and 7 sets of gills. And they take oxygen from the water with their gills. Unlike bony fishes sharks do not have swim bladders, their livers are filled with oil and helps them with their buoyancy. Some sharks' livers may be up to 30% of their body mass. Here are soupfin sharks filmed at San Clemente Island one of The Channel Islands off of California

For the last 30 years, people have feared sharks. The movie 'Jaws' scared a lot of people. Also because we did not know any better, we thought that sharks were man eaters and many people tried to kill them. There have been hundreds of millions of sharks taken from the ocean. We do not know what is going to happen during the next few years in our ocean. Here is another video on how you can help save our sharks!

When ever I go scuba diving, I hope to see sharks because I love to watch them swim. Also it is so infrequent that we see sharks now, I get excited every time we do dive with them. These are white tipped reef sharks. Can you see the white tips on their fins? They are resting on the bottom.

Sharks can see, hear, smell, taste and feel, yet they have a special sense as wel. The Ampullae of Lorenzini are electroreceptor organs of the shark. Depending on the species they may have a couple hundred or thousands of these glands. They use the Ampullae of Lorenzini to detect prey in the water. These ampullae can feel the electrical fields produced by all fish. Scientists are studying if the oceanic curents moving in the magnetic field of Earth are used by sharks for orientation and navigation. We know from satellite tagging that some sharks migrate thousands of miles for feeding and reproduction.

We need to protect sharks. If you eat fish and chips at the restaurant, make sure they are not using sharks and rays as the fish! Many people do not realize that sharks are fish and they buy shark and eat it without knowing. Ask questions about where the food you eat comes from. Talk to the manager at your gorcery store and fish market, make sure they are purchasing sustainable fish. Sign a petition, write to your government, we need to act locally and globally! The future of the ocean is in all of our hands and we can make a difference.

Visions of the Sea Visions of the Sea DVD allows you to experience the most amazing life on our planet while either listening to an award winning sound track or inspirational stories of Annie’s experiences around the world. Visions of the Sea takes you face to face with Wh

STRETCH STRETCH If you bite off more than you can chew, don’t suffocate in the process. Snake eel eating a Flying Gunard, Indonesia

BELIEVE Hammerhead Shark, Galapagos

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed