Washed up basking shark in Cork can help experts learn how best to conserve them
The shark that was washed up on Inchydoney beach. Picture: Nicholas Payne
A marine biologist has said the basking shark that washed up in Cork at the weekend can help experts learn how best to conserve them.
On Friday, pictures of the dead female shark on Inchydoney beach began to circulate on social media.
Dr Nicholas Payne, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin working in the field of marine biology, went to analyse the Cork shark at the weekend.
He and PhD student Haley Dolton carried out a post mortem on the shark to learn more about basking shark anatomy, for a project being led by Ms Dolton.
Dr Payne said that it is “quite rare” for a basking shark to be washed up on a beach in such good condition.
Sad event, but this basking shark that washed up in Cork on the weekend provided valuable info on the physiology and anatomy of these incredible animals. More knowledge = more effective conservation 🦈. Thanks Padraig @IWDGnews and @Corkcoco for help! @TCDZoology @IrishResearch pic.twitter.com/frTcCMPjsF
— Nicholas Payne (@nicklpayne) April 26, 2021
He said that normally the animal is decomposed so it can be hard to get “useful scientific information out of it”.
The shark had only recently died and it meant that they could “get in and look at its anatomy and physiology in quite good detail”.
“We didn’t go down with a specific objective of specifically what to look. We just wanted to build a picture of how the animal is built and designed.”
Dr Payne said that the more of this they can understand, the better they can learn about the impact humans are having on basking sharks.
“The more we can learn about the biology of the animal, the better placed we are to be able to conserve them and stop the declines that we are seeing.”
He added that the main aim of analysing the shark was to learn, saying that they wanted to make observations about the normal function of the animal and the way the body is arranged normally.
He said that while basking sharks are no longer targeted heavily, they still suffer in the ocean at human hands.
Dr Payne explained that they can get tangled in fishing nets and that boat strikes are an issue for this species of shark as they swim close to the surface.
He said that still don’t know exactly how the West Cork shark, which wasn’t fully grown, died.
Dr Payne praised the Cork County Council for giving them permission to study the shark and the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group for assisting.
He said the speed is important in a case like this in other “to get the kind of research insights that we got”.
