Divers in Singapore find 8 dead blacktip sharks

In the waters of Pulau Hantu, islands just south of Singapore, divers made a gruesome and heartbreaking discovery: the lifeless bodies of eight young blacktip sharks who appeared to have died from wounds to their gills. Sharks are rare to spot in the area, so it was especially gut-wrenching to discover them dead. The divers who discovered it were shocked at the devastating scene.

“When my dive buddy pointed out the first one, I was confused and examined the body to try to understand what might have happened. Its jaw and fins were intact. There were several stabs and slash wounds. Then a couple of metres forward we saw another, and another, and another.”

The sharks were found by divers around 10 to 11 metres deep in the waters around Hantu Jetty, all with gills that had been torn or shredded. As gills are one of the most fragile areas of a shark’s body, the injuries suggest that fishing nets could be the culprit in the deaths. Officials were quick to say that the true cause of death is still unknown and they may need to do a post-mortem to truly pinpoint what happened.

Fishing nets are known as an “indiscriminate killer” as they are intended for commercial fishing but ensnare nearly anything that passes through them, including sharks and sea turtles. The gill damage divers observed that likely killed these eight blacktip sharks could be from their struggle to free themselves of netting. Last year a 500 metres gill net nearby neighbouring Pulau Semakau killed a variety of marine animals including 12 young black-tipped reef sharks.

Divers who discovered the dead sharks noted the torn gills, but one said they saw at least four with torn mouths as well that looked as though they had been snagged by a fishing hook and torn free.

The area where the blacktip sharks were found was littered with trash and divers pulled up about 20 to 30 metres of discharged fishing lines, wishing hooks, and lead weights that had become tangled around the coral on the ocean floor. Fishing is generally legal in most areas of Singapore, except for a handful of protected “No Take” areas, but a diver pointed out the damage these fishing practices do to the marine biology in the area.

“Sharks are critical to our ecosystem and I cannot begin to fathom why someone would do this. All of this suffocates corals, traps creatures big and small, and devastates the ecosystem.”

SOURCE: Channel News Asia