A Chinese food blogger who cut up, cooked, and ate a great white shark – and captured the lavish production on video – has been fined $18,500 by authorities.
A Chinese food blogger who bought a great white shark at market, then prepared and ate the apex predator in a lavish video production, has been fined $18,500 by authorities.
The blogger’s user name is Tizi but authorities identified her as Jin Moumou, while explaining last week in a statement that Jin bought the shark last April for $1,100 and posted her footage in July.
The footage went viral, which is what tipped authorities. (CLICK HERE to watch the video.)
White sharks are protected in China and Jin’s actions were in violation of the “Wild Animal Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China,” authorities explained.
According to the statement, the fisherman and “shark sellers” were arrested for catching and selling a protected species. The white shark, a juvenile, looks to measure about six feet.
In the footage, a smiling Jin informs her followers, “Don’t be fooled by their scary appearance, its meat is very tender.”
Stephens stated that the net was being used to catch squid.
The footage was copied by shark diver/conservationist Andy Brande Casagrande and shared to Instagram with the description: “Awesome to see these fishermen respecting & releasing this massive Great White Shark that was stuck in their net.”
A great white shark named Tough Guy, tagged off Southern California in 2021, is approaching Hawaii.
In late October a male great white shark nicknamed Tough Guy revealed his position off Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Santa Barbara.
It was noteworthy because at least three white shark attacks on surfers – two of them fatal – occurred in base waters between 2010 and 2014.
On Monday, Tough Guy was nearing the main Hawaiian Islands, showing the extent to which these apex predators seasonally migrate.
“White Sharks are peeling away from the mainland coast,” Michael Domeier, who runs the Marine Conservation Science Institute, stated via Instagram. “Looks like Tough Guy is coming back to Hawaii to say hello.”
Adult white sharks from California and Mexico typically spend winter in a vast swath of Pacific halfway between the West Coast and Hawaii, with some reaching Hawaii.
Tough Guy was tagged off Southern California on Nov. 21, 2021. He measured 12 feet at the time.
The Marine Conservation Science Institute has satellite-tagged dozens of white sharks and the public can track their movements via the nonprofit’s Expedition White Shark App.
–Generic white shark image courtesy of Michael Domeier/Marine Conservation Science Institute
A 50-year-old woman was bitten by a shark while swimming Friday morning at Del Mar, Calif., prompting authorities to close the beach to surfing and swimming.
A 50-year-old woman was bitten by a shark Friday morning while swimming in Del Mar, Calif., prompting authorities to close the area to surfing and swimming.
The unidentified woman was bitten on the upper thigh and treated by lifeguards before being taken to a hospital, where she was listed in stable condition.
According to NBC News, lifeguards used a float tube and swim fins to assist the woman.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that lifeguards saw the woman and her companion waving their arms to request assistance.
The incident occurred near 17th Street at about 10 a.m.
It was not immediately clear what type of shark bit the woman, but the several juvenile great white sharks have been feeding in the area, just beyond the surf, for weeks.
Last Sunday, the carcass of an 8-foot white shark was discovered on the beach at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve and Beach, just south of Del Mar.
The shark is believed to have died of wounds caused by fishing activity.
The beach closure at 17th Street will remain in effect until 9 a.m. Sunday.
A great white shark was found dead Sunday near San Diego with wounds caused by fishing gear, and experts suspect that anglers are illegally targeting the species.
A great white shark was found dead Sunday near San Diego with wounds caused by fishing gear, and experts suspect that anglers are illegally targeting the species.
The carcass of an 8-foot juvenile white shark was discovered at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve and Beach, between Del Mar and La Jolla, and temporarily placed on display.
“She had succumbed to injuries sustained from fishing activities,” the reserve stated on Facebook. “Great whites are protected and must be safely released if accidentally caught. We took the opportunity to turn this unfortunate event into an educational opportunity for our visitors.”
Juvenile white sharks feed on stingrays and other bottom fishes off Southern California and some areas become aggregation sites. These sites vary over time and Torrey Pines is presently one of them.
The shark found Sunday was tagged Aug. 12 by a crew from the Shark Lab at California State University Long Beach. It had regularly been detected between Del Mar and Black’s Beach – directly off Torrey Pines.
Discarded fishing gear, including large hooks designed for big-game fishing, was found near the stranding site.
Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab, told FTW Outdoors that nearly 40% of Torrey Pines white sharks are trailing fishing gear. “So there will be more problems,” Lowe predicted.
One of the hooks found near the stranding site.
Targeting white sharks is illegal, but enforcing the law is difficult because anglers can simply claim to be fishing for other species. Possessing white sharks also is against the law; white sharks that become hooked must be set free instantly upon identification.
“These fishers are pretty brazen and don’t think they’re doing any harm, but when you see the size of the tackle and how many are breaking off with 100 feet of line and lead trailing, you can understand why these sharks die from these interactions,” Lowe said.
“They aren’t fishing for bat rays with this heavy duty terminal tackle and baits – it sure looks like they are targeting these white sharks, which is illegal.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife performed a necropsy on the shark Monday but results have yet to be revealed.
Said Lowe: “There was clear indication of jaw hooking and tearing through the jaw.”
–Generic image showing a juvenile white shark is courtesy of Pete Thomas
A tagged great white shark nicknamed Tough Guy has been tracked to an area where at least three attacks on surfers have occurred since 2010.
A tagged great white shark nicknamed Tough Guy has been tracked to an area where at least three attacks on surfers have occurred since 2010.
The male shark, which measured 12 feet when he was tagged in November 2021, pinged this week off Minuteman Beach, 20 miles north of Surf Beach.
Both are on Vandenberg Air Force Base, north of Santa Barbara. Both are open to the public.
Fatal shark attacks occurred at Surf Beach almost exactly two years apart in October 2010 and 2012. A nonfatal bite, also attributed to a white shark, occurred in the same area in 2014.
On Tuesday, Domeier posted Tough Guy’s position via Instagram and asked his followers: “Who can name this notorious beach? Our tagged great white shark, Tough Guy, pinged from here a few days ago.”
Some of Domeier’s followers are familiar with the area. One correctly guessed Minuteman Beach, while others knew of the area’s shark-attack history.
“The month of October has a reputation at Surf Beach,” one follower wrote, adding crying-face emojis for emphasis.
“Sharktober is real around here,” reads another comment.
Vandenberg is about 30 miles north of Point Conception, a feeding area for white sharks and a tagging area for the Marine Conservation Science Institute.
Great white sharks tagged by MCSI off California and Mexico can be tracked by the public via the Expedition White Shark App.
As of Wednesday morning, Tough Guy’s position off Minuteman Beach had not changed.
–Generic white shark image courtesy of Michael Domeier
A great white shark leaped into the spotlight during a Southern California surfing contest Saturday, breaching free of the surface just beyond the breakers.
A great white shark leaped into the spotlight during a Southern California surfing contest Saturday, breaching free of the surface just beyond one of the surfers.
Jordan Anast, who captured the accompanying image, told the Orange County Register that he thought the splash in his viewfinder was caused by a dolphin.
While inspecting his images, however, Anast realized he had just photographed a white shark as it photobombed surfer Tyler Warren.
“It’s a shot I’ll never get again,” Anast said. “It just looks like ‘Sharknado,’ it doesn’t look real.”
The spectacle occurred during the San Onofre Surfing Club’s annual contest at San Onofre, south of San Clemente. Anast told FTW Outdoors that the contest was not postponed and Warren did not see the shark as he rode his wave in choppy conditions.
The San Onofre Surfing Club joked about the “uninvited guest” on Facebook, writing: “Surfers in the water said that it was going for the pelican in the upper righthand corner of the photo. Scored a 10 by all judges!”
The imagery helps to illustrate that Southern California surfers share their playground with the world’s most notorious apex predator. And the casual attitude expressed by the surfing club shows how accepting surfers have become of this coexistence.
Juvenile white sharks, measuring to about 11 feet, feed in and near the surf zone on stingrays and other bottom fishes. They mass-congregate in areas that vary over time.
While San Onofre is not currently one of those areas, juvenile white sharks are spotted from the beach sporadically during the summer and fall.
Anast said the shark he photographed measured 12 to 14 feet.
However, Chris Lowe, who runs the Shark Lab at California State University Long Beach, estimated the shark’s length at about nine feet, based on its girth in the image.
Lowe and his team have been tagging juvenile white sharks off Southern California as part of ongoing research.
Video footage showing a large great white shark dwarfed by an enormous white shark has produced some classic, albeit predictable, responses.
Video footage showing a large great white shark dwarfed by an enormous white shark has produced some classic, albeit predictable, responses.
The accompanying footage, tweeted Saturday by The Depths Below, is intended to show the “size difference between a 3m (10-foot) great white and a 5m (16-foot) great white.”
Both sharks were attracted to bait during an unidentified cage-diving operation and the footage, with no credit given, has garnered more than 1 million views.
Predictably, one of the comments is a GIF showing Capt. Quint (Robert Shaw) from “Jaws,” behind a fishing rod.
Another shows Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) in the boat cabin with Quint, nervously smoking a cigarette as the GIF text reads, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
There was a famous Quint quote from the same 1975 thriller: “Y’know the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes….”
One commenter proclaimed to be “done with the ocean. Forever.”
A more sensible observation: “The big one uses its tail to give a little warning to the teenager.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, dozens of viewers did not seem impressed and commented, dryly, that the difference between 3 meters and 5 meters is, of course, 2 meters.
A prominent Southern California shark tagger has documented his tug of war with a ferocious mako shark, he said, to showcase the species’ “beauty, power, and strength.”
A prominent Southern California shark tagger has documented his tug of war with a ferocious mako shark, he said, to showcase the species’ “beauty, power, and strength.”
“I’m their ambassador,” Poe told FTW Outdoors.
The accompanying footage shows the 12-foot shark refusing to release a bonito tied to a rope and fighting for possession with head shakes, much in the way a dog might refuse to let go of a stuffed toy.
(There was no hook in the bait; the shark could have let go at any time.)
The footage opens with Poe tapping the shark’s head, as if to signal the start of a competition, as the shark surfaces with the bonito inches from his boat.
The competition ends after about a minute, when the shark releases the bonito and Poe declares, “That’s right, it’s my fish baby! Come back again when you want to play!”
Poe tags white sharks and mako sharks for the Marine Conservation Science Institute. He typically keeps hookless baits in the water to let him know when sharks arrive in the chum slick.
“When I want to tag a white shark or a mako shark, I use a hook and a hand line,” Poe explained.
The MCSI team, including Poe, are featured in the National Geographic documentary “Counting Jaws,” which examines a newly discovered great white shark aggregation site off California.
Poe also will appear in several episodes of the Discovery series, “Shark Week,” which begins July 24.
A Southern California fisherman who tags sharks for research recorded what he described as a “monster mako splashdown” late Sunday near Santa Catalina Island.
A Southern California angler who tags sharks for research recorded what he described as a “monster mako splashdown” late Sunday near Santa Catalina Island.
Interestingly, the adult female mako shark took a live mackerel tied to a fishing line and jumped seven times against the drag of heavy tackle despite not being hooked.
The accompanying footage, captured by Keith Poe, shows four of the seven jumps.
A second video shows mako sharks taking Poe’s hookless baits and leaping in the dark to rock music.
Poe, who tags sharks for the Marine Conservation Science Institute, told FTW Outdoors that he keeps hookless baits in the water to alert him when sharks arrive in the chum slick.
“When I want to tag a white shark or a mako shark, I use a hook and a handline,” Poe said.
