Sink your teeth into this news.
Sharks may be more useful than meteorologists when it comes to long-term forecasting of hurricanes, experts say — and the clues can be found in their migration patterns.
Like dogs and birds before a storm, sharks that smell trouble usually move en masse to deeper waters weeks in advance, observers note.
A sea captain, a fishing captain from Galveston, Tex., says he was able to predict three major hurricanes — including Ike, in 2008 — by observing the strange, group behavior displayed by the apex predator ahead of time.
Speaking to his hometown newspaper, Captain Mike Williams recounted the “bull shark invasion” he observed on his usual fishing channel in 2008.
Seeing them repeatedly “staged” in the area led Williams to warn the fishing community in 2008, “I think we’ve got a hurricane coming.”
For three weeks, it was largely ignored — and then Hurricane Ike devastated the Houston-Galveston area.
It seems like they should have listened, according to Tobey Curtis, Gloucester, Mass.-based fisheries management specialist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Last year, sharks off the city’s coast — where the so-called “Perfect Storm” occurred in 1991 — were fitted by NOAA with microreaders to gauge changes in water conditions. The findings were impressive.
“They have the ability to capture this oceanographic data that can inform hurricane models, which is really cool,” Curtis said.
In 2017, when Hurricane Irma hit Florida, sharks were paired with acoustic readers to better understand the situation.
Again bull sharks, along with nurse sharks and hammerheads, all retreated from the local Biscayne Bay to deeper waters when the storm made landfall.
Marine biologist Mike Heithaus told KEYE TV in Austin, Texas that tiger sharks in the Bahamas also “slide” into the depths when storms are approaching.
Recent research has found that some sharks prefer to be in shallower, warmer waters – lending credence to the idea that the slicker depths may be a last refuge for the creatures.
This year, 13 hurricanes and 25 tropical storms have already been predicted.
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Image Source : nypost.com
