Basking Shark?

graham

graham

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I saw what I think was a basking shark off the Pembrokeshire coast this week. About 6 feet long brownish colour rounded dorsal fin flopping from side to side doing about 2 or 3 knots just under the water only dorsal fin above the water.

Any experts can confirm it is what I think?
 
Seems a bit small IMHO. i have been close to a number of basking sharks over the years and they are normally bigger. You usually see what looks like to fins protruding out of the water as the long tail moves slowly from side to side. But if it wasn't a basking shark I do not know what it could have been by the discription other than an other species of shark?

Regards.

peter.
 
I only caught a glimpse of it, may have been a bit bigger but certainly less than 8 feet .The noticeable thing was how floppy the fin was and rounded in shape.

Also several groups of porpoises doing their display routines around the boat.Didnt get a pic of the shark but hope to have some of porpoises when I get the film developed.

Coming back passed the Gower peninsular I sailed through a huge area of jelly fish.The transparent ones with 4 purple rings on their backs. Quite uplifting to see so much life out there.
 
any possibility you saw a sunfish?

smallish upright dorsal that flops from one side to the other as the fish moves it's upright body from side to side.

often found on the surface off Cornwall and South Devon

can grow huge but often in the 30 - 50lb class and smaller

Basking shark is pretty unmistakeable - it's big and it's a shark on the surface! You do get threshers in the upper layers but generally they will be acting more energetically feeding on sprats or mackerel schoals

basking shark

Basking_Shark.gif


sunfish

SUN_FISH.GIF
 
Looking at that I dont think it can have been a basking shark.It was definitely a light brown colour and the fin was not pointed like a sharks.Not sure about the sunfish.Its possible as only one fin was showing.Looking down on it it didnt look as round in the body but that may be a trick of the light or my viewing angle.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Coming back passed the Gower peninsular I sailed through a huge area of jelly fish.The transparent ones with 4 purple rings on their backs. Quite uplifting to see so much life out there.


[/ QUOTE ]

Have a look at this ...

warning in Wales
 
we crossed the tide line last weekend. Normally just dead krill n stuff but on Saturday there were miles of small jellyfish, strip about 6ft wide by bloody miles. Never seen anything like that before.
 
Sunfish?

You'd probably know pretty quickly if you saw a sunfish. Theses guys can grow huge. They look a bit fearsome but are really gentle giants. Occasionally ocean racers plough into them mid-ocean and stop (or sustain keel damage)!

Sunfish.jpg
 
Well at least I have positively identified the type of jelly fish. (Moon Jelly fish)I have seen lots of them before but never so many at once . We also get the milky white ones almost as big as a dustbin lid from time to time washed up on west wales beaches.
 
Often wondered if there's any commercial potential in these jelly fish. The combined bio mass must be massive and I cant see there being any "save the jelly-fish lobbying" Wondered if they could be dried and used as fertiliser or something?
 
[ QUOTE ]
I cant see there being any "save the jelly-fish lobbying" Wondered if they could be dried and used as fertiliser or something?

[/ QUOTE ]

With the big fish fast vanishing, the hoovering-up of smaller stuff is becoming a huge issue. Farmed fish are fed on ground-up small stuff and thus the wild big fish are deprived of their food and the decline is accelerated.

The almost unbelievably stupid and short-sighted way in which the oceans are 'managed' is very depressing. And yet it would be (in theory) very easy to manage them properly and take a huge sustainable harvest. But that would require intelligence, co-operation and a set of rules that were followed. So it won't happen.

So although I have no problem with sustainable harvesting of almost anything from the sea, maybe there should be a save-the jellyfish lobby!
 
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