One Tuesday morning towards the end of September, Ross O’Neill, a fisheries scientist with the Marine Institute, went aboard a small vessel off the Maharees in Kerry with local fisherman Michael Peter Hennessy. For two years, Ross had been searching for the common angel shark, a nearly extinct nocturnal species that spends its days hidden in the seabed. Once abundant, angel sharks are now so rare that some scientists go for their entire career without ever setting eyes on one.
If the word “shark” conjures images of the torpedo-shaped great white, imagine instead something different: a mottled brown, flattened fish with broad, wing-like fins on either side of its body, a bit like a 1980s batwing jumper; 6ft long with two small eyes and a large, gaping mouth. The angel shark lies on the sand or mud of the ocean floor, waiting motionless like a camouflaged stealth sniper for its target to pass by (bony fish, lobsters and squid will all do). With an explosive strike, the shark will lunge towards its prey, grab it with its jaws and wolf it down in under a second, only to disappear into the sand again.
Ross is part of a publicly funded project that seeks to fill the many gaps in knowledge about these sharks’ movements in and out of Tralee Bay. Scientists need to understand where the sharks spend their days, nights, weeks and years to formulate effective strategies to ensure their survival, especially as these coastal areas are targeted for wind farm development. To do this, tiny satellite tags, which collect and transmit location data over 12 months, are attached to the sharks.
Marine scientists have developed trusted working relationships with fishermen such as Michael, whose immense knowledge of the sea greatly benefits researchers. These fishers, who are paid for their efforts, are no longer narrowly defined by what they catch and sell; instead, they use their boats and knowledge to work as marine conservationists alongside the scientists.
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That September morning, everything fell into place. Michael had told Ross he had spotted the sharks while fishing for crayfish, so they went out and hauled the nets. To Ross’s delight, a male angel shark was caught.
Taking angel sharks from the water, however temporarily, isn’t without risk; the stress and strain can cause pregnant females to abort their pups. Although it was his first real-life encounter with this ancient species, Ross had a very short time to get the tag on before he had to return it to the water.
In the past, angel shark skins, which are extremely tough and rough, were harvested to polish furniture. When Ross lifted the male shark out of the net, the texture of the skin was unlike anything he had experienced. It was so robust that when he tried to make a small incision in the skin to attach the tag, he was taken aback by the effort needed to get through the outer layer.
Meanwhile, the fish wasted no time reminding Ross it was a shark. Aggressive and agile, it repetitively turned around to try to bite him. Ross quickly attached the tag and released it into the sea; a week later, thanks to Michael Peter Hennessy, Ross further succeeded in tagging a small female shark.
True to its name, the common angel shark was common along coastal habitats around Ireland up to the 1950s. According to marine biologist Kevin Flannery, fishers around the coast of Ireland had nicknames for them: in Kerry they called them Fiddlefish; in Donegal, Moldunt; in Mayo, Roc Aingil. But as dredge fishing – a device that scrapes the seafloor to harvest shellfish like scallops, oysters and clams – became more widespread, angel sharks and other bottom-dwellers suffered. Because they’re slow to breed, they rapidly disappeared, and angling logbooks from Irish waters indicate a near-catastrophic decline between 1955 and 2011. Off the coast of Wales, their abundance plummeted by 70 per cent in just under five decades.
The remaining global hotspot is off the Canary Islands, where dredging was banned decades ago. Clew Bay and Tralee Bay are their last known refuges here, where their numbers are so low it may be too late to help them. But scientists such as Ross refuse to give up hope. His research will also help the authorities better understand how to manage the recently designated Páirc Náisiúnta na Mara, Ireland’s first marine national park, which encompasses areas off Kerry’s coast where the sharks are found.
If all goes well, next September the tags will fall off the sharks and float to the surface, where they will transmit all the location data back to Ross’s laptop. The data should provide a clearer picture of their movements and give us a better idea of how to help them survive and breed. This may involve closing off areas in the sea to fishing for a few months of the year, but in the fishers off this part of Kerry, scientists seem to have a willing cohort who will work with them to find a way forward.
Few, if any, of us will ever see an angel shark in the water, and even if we did, it may not mean much. So why care? Because their presence – and, most importantly, their ability to successfully breed – is a good indicator that the seas are doing well.
Still, in the end, it comes down to whether we want to hold ourselves to higher standards for future generations.
“Sharks have been around longer than dinosaurs, for over 400 million years,” says Ross. “It would be an absolute shame for us humans, under our guardianship, to be responsible for their extinction in such a short period. Beneath the waves is their home; there must be an appreciation for their resilience. It’s up to us to alter our activities to ensure their future is secure.”