The Dorsal Fin

Shark HQ is now open at Australia’s Sydney Aquarium. The exhibit features various shark-themed displays and activities, including:

• tracking of great white sharks and bull sharks
• a shark hatchery and nursery with shark eggs and baby sharks on display
• shark tunnels which allow visitor to walk “underwater” with sharks
• Q&A sessions with shark experts
• “swim with sharks” demonstrations
• an animatronic great white shark

The animatronic great white shark can be seen in action in the video clip below. According to the news clip the animatronic shark measures 7.4m in length. (Please ignore the obligatory references to “Jaws” in the video clip.)

The St. Petersburg Times will run a print article on Bill Goldschmitt (aka “The Sharkman of Cortez”) in this Sunday’s edition of the paper. The article details many of Goldschmitt’s “strong opinions,” which include the belief that there are too many sharks in the oceans, and that scientists’ claims of decreasing are unfounded based on his own personal observations. Goldschmitt comes off as rather tame in the video above compared to the print article which is already available online at TampaBay.com.

If nothing else, the article is an “interesting” glimpse into the mind of Goldschmitt.

According to a statement from Paul Barrington, the shark involved in the Wrighstville Beach incident was erroneously identified as a sand tiger shark.

Contrary to statements made in a WECT.com feature on the recent shark attack at Wrightsville Beach, Paul Barrington of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher was quoted today in a Lumina News article as saying…

"A lot of the media has so far erroneously identified it as a sand tiger shark. It takes a tremendous amount of forensics to determine specifically what type of shark it is."

The WECT.com feature stated that Barrington believed that "a sand-tiger shark could have been the suspect" in the Wrightsville Beach incident. However, Barrington’s recent quotes seem to dispute that notion.

George Burgess stated in the Lumina News article that the species of shark involved will likely remain a mystery. Burgess and Barrington confirmed the shark was approximately 4′ in length. Barrington’s list of suspected species include the small sharpnose shark (the species with presently the largest population in coastal NC), the dusky, the sandbar, the lemon, the black tip or the spinner shark, according to the Lumina News article.

It would seem that even whales aren’t immune to “Jaws” references in the news. CNN‘s report on a breaching whale that landed on a sailboat near Cape Town harbor features clips from “Jaws.” Additionally, during an interview in the report, the interviewer even asks one of the occupants of the boat if she thought about “Jaws” when the incident happened.

The southern right whale was “definitely badly bruised, but probably did not break anything,” according to a marine scientist quoted in USA Today. The USA Today article also calls into question whether or not the whale was being harassed by the boaters. Legally, sailors are required to stay at least 1,000′ from whales, according to the report.

In other breaking news, CNN also aired a clip this morning of a someone being chased by a moose. There were no “Jaws” references in the moose report, though.

UPDATE (07/22/10): Paul Barrington has been quoted by another news source as saying that the sand tiger shark was erroneously identified as the shark involved in the Wrightsville Beach incident.

According to WECT.com, Paul Barrington, of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, believes the shark suspected of biting a 13-year-old girl at Wrightsville Beach, NC might be sand tiger shark (aka grey nurse shark or ragged tooth shark). Kendall Parker sustained a single bite to the arm, while she was in waist-deep water on Saturday. Her injuries required 40-stitches, but she is expected to make a full-recovery.

The sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) is generally considered to be “docile” and non-threatening to humans. A sand tiger shark’s diet consists primarily of fish. Barrington mentions in the interview above that with a the number of bait fish in the water a “hit-and-run attack” could be a case of mistaken identity.