Tiger sharks appear to hunker down and weather a hurricane as if nothing happened, while other less-brave sharks evacuate shallow waters, according to a recent study.
“I was amazed to see that big tiger sharks didn’t evacuate even as the eye of the hurricane was bearing down on them — it was as if they didn’t even flinch.” said Neil Hammerschlag, a research associate professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School and one of the authors of the study published in ScienceDirect.
Researchers looked at acoustic tag data before, during and after Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017 to analyze behavior in different sharks.
When Hurricane Irma passed through Miami, bull sharks, great hammerheads and most nurse sharks appeared to evacuate the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay.
But tiger sharks in the Bahamas were unfazed as their environment took a direct hit from the eye of the Category 5 Hurricane Matthew. The tiger sharks remained in shallow waters, and after the hurricane passed, the number of tiger sharks in the area doubled.
There had previously been one shark detected each day in the area, but one month after Matthew, there was an average of 2.3 sharks a day, according to the study.
“We suspect tiger sharks were probably taking advantage of all the new scavenging opportunities from dead animals that were churned up in the storm,” Hammerschlag said in a statement.
Tiger sharks can grow up to 18 feet and weigh 2,000 pounds. They’re famous for eating nearly any type of food they can sink their teeth into, including less-tasty options such as garbage, fishing gear, metal or wood.
The toothy predators tend to stay in tropical climates and have been known to bite people — and that can be fatal due to the sharks’ huge size.
In Miami during Hurricane Irma, the number of nurse sharks and great hammerheads were similar a month prior and a month after the storm. Bull sharks appeared to decline in the area a month following the storm.
Nurse sharks are about ten feet long and rest during the day before feeding at night. Bull sharks are around the same length and are incredibly aggressive, while great hammerheads are 20 feet in length and feed on prey such as stingrays and even other sharks.
Researchers said severe weather events such as hurricanes are likely to increase due to climate change, and tracking the impact on marine animals such as sharks will remain of great interest to conservationalists.
