AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums About Belize Nature What's a shark normally in the Arctic doing in Belize?

It had been a long night of fishing. By dawn, the weather had deteriorated. Storms were gathering on the horizon. The team did a last check of their lines. On the other end of one, wasn't a tiger shark, but a rather sluggish creature. It looked old-ancient, even-and more like an elongated, smooth stone that had sprung to life. It had a blunt snout and small pale bluish colored eyes. All together, these clues led scientists to think it was a member of the sleeper shark family.

https://phys.org/news/2022-07-shark-ordinarily-arctic-belize.html

A Shark Native to the Freezing Artic Waters Found in Belize

What is a half-blind shark with a life span of up to four hundred years, and native to the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans doing in Belize? The Greenland shark, known to scavenge on polar bear carcasses in ocean temperatures below thirty five degrees Fahrenheit was for the first time found in the Caribbean Sea. The discovery was made by a team of researchers from the Mote Marine laboratory and Aquarium in May of this year off in the Glovers Reef Marine Reserve. The find has left shark researchers with more questions about this shark specie. News Five's Paul Lopez spoke with one of the researchers who made the discovery.

Paul Lopez, Reporting

It is one of the rarest sightings in this part of the world, a Greenland shark in the western Caribbean Sea. The Greenland shark is one of the largest cartilaginous fish, with a body temperature of less than thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit, the same as the water it inhabits far north in the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. Back in May, Hector Martinez and a team of researchers with Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium were out at Glovers Reef conducting research when they caught a Greenland shark in a most unlikely environment.

Hector Martinez, Researcher, Mote Marine Laboratory

"We went out on the east side of Glovers, we set the line down on north east caye , went maybe half mile out north east of the caye, went maybe south east. It got really windy, couldn't pull the line as often as we wanted, so we waited until morning and when we went up to pull the line, the anchor that we had dropped probably half mile out had swung all the way around to maybe two and a half miles, three miles from where we dropped it, so we were like, there has to be something big on that line to drag that thing far out. The line was pretty long, so it was pretty heavy."

Martinez and his crew spent the next two hours pulling the shark to the surface. At first, the captain of the boat, Martinez's uncle, thought that they had captured an Atlantic six-gill shark, a more common sighting in these parts.

Hector Martinez,

"When I first saw that thing coming up, I was controlling the hydraulic motor to pull the line. The captain, my uncle, he is like something is coming up. No one ever thought it was that. It looked this big, this long, but like this wide. So, I was like what the hell was that. So, as it kept coming closer it looked like a monster. I was like, shit, is this thing going to jump in the boat. But, once we floated it up we saw what it was. We didn't think it was a Greenland Shark."

Without accurately identifying the shark, the team took a video and proceeded to release the beast. Through that video, Demian Chapman, the Director of Sharks and Rays Conservation Research at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, identified the shark as a Greenland shark. It is the first time in history that a Greenland shark has been found in the western Caribbean Sea.

Hector Martinez

"The Greenland shark belongs in Greenland. It has that name for a reason, so it belongs in Greenland. I think it is up in Canada a lot. That is one of the main amazing parts, it doesn't belong in Belize. Also, it has never been recorded in Belize to my knowledge. When we go out there, we are always curious to see what is coming out from the depths. I hope to catch a White Shark one of these days. I don't know if that day will come. You have probably heard that they spotted Orcas off Ranguana Caye several years back. So, we definitely get some rare creatures out there. So, there is that hope of catching something even, well I don't know if we will catch something rarer than that, because that is very rare, but it's like lottery. You will probably have a better chance at winning the lottery."

Channel 5

Greenland Shark Found in Belize

And while the Lab is sure to fix hearts, this next story might cause yours to skip a beat.

And that's because arctic sharks could be living in Belizean waters.

Earlier this summer a group of scientists found and documented one of the ancient animals in a very curious place indeed, here's that story.

There's been a very unusual discovery in Belizean waters, it happened when a PHD student from Florida International University went on a tiger shark tagging expedition off the coast of Belize. Research assistant Hector Martinez was with her when it happened.

Hector Daniel Martinez, Research Assistant
"When we pulled it up, I saw it coming up. It looked this wide and this long it looked short cause it was very wide, I can only see it's head, but as it got further up I stepped back cause it looked scary. It was something I've never seen before."

Unsure about the unusual fish, Hector Martinez shot a video to share with the PhD student's advisor:

Hector Daniel Martinez, Research Assistant
"When one of doctor Chapman's students sent the video to him, that's when he responded back and was this is not a six-gill shark, this is a green land shark."

Now, the curious discovery of this arctic shark in the Caribbean could change everything we understand about its migratory patterns and perhaps suggest that it can be found all over the world, wherever the water is deep and cold enough.

Hector Daniel Martinez, Research Assistant
"There's not much known about this shark migratory pattern, because they live in deep water and they are not coming up to the surface, so its a few tags that you could put on it. But we do know it likes cold water and so we caught it in the deep like 2,000 feet of water. The water down there is pretty cold."

And doubly exciting for the budding marine biologists is that Greenland sharks can live up to 400 years.

Hector Daniel Martinez, Research Assistant
"It's the oldest living animal on earth, they live up to four or five hundred years. That one we caught was like eight to ten feet, and if it's ten feet it's a hundred years old. So it's an old old, shark."

Martinez says he'll try to tag another but he's aware that he might be more likely to win the lottery than identify another Greenland Shark on what seems like a Caribbean vacation.

Channel 7