Mote Marine Laboratory

Center For Shark Research: Mote Marine Laboratory

Shark Myths: Mote Marine Laboratory

Shark Research Program at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History

NOAA

Sharks are studied for medicinal purposes as they are relatively disease-free and have a documented natural resistance to cancer. Researchers predict a better understanding of this in the next five to ten years.

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The facts of Florida's sharks

I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.

Last month, what is believed to be a shark attack, took the life of a swimmer near St. Petersburg Beach. While fatal attacks are rare in Florida -- this was the first in more than 10 years -- it is a reminder that sharks do populate both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

"That was a very sad and unfortunate incident that really was, in most respects, a freak accident."

Bob Hueter is director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota...

"When you look at the statistics of shark attack, we have lots of bites in Florida every year -- on the range of 20 to 25 -- but they tend to be 'hit and run' kinds of things, smaller sharks... most of them are on the east coast of Florida on surfers and some bathers over there."

Hueter says the unfortunate attack should raise awareness for Florida waters -- even those near shore...

"Although this happened in an urban area, and in a back bay in the St. Petersburg Beach area, sharks live there. They are a natural component of marine waters, both in the gulf and up inside the bays. And many of them are large and they live out their entire life cycles in the area."

For more information, visit www.floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by SWFCEE, the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education.

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Florida's common sharks

I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.

As what is believed to be a shark attack caused the death of a swimmer near St. Petersburg Beach last month, scientists who study sharks say it brings up both misperceptions and a lack of knowledge about sharks in Florida waters. Bob Hueter is director of Mote Marine Laboratory's Center for Shark Research...

"Florida is blessed -- and I say that as a shark biologist -- Florida is blessed with about two dozen species of sharks that inhabit the Gulf coast area, and then a few more on top of that on the east coast that are migratory."

Last month's tragic attack took place, not in open water but in a bay, off a backyard dock...

"Although statistically, this event was very, very rare, the idea of sharks being back in that area is nothing new."

Perhaps keeping attacks at a minimum is that most Florida species are smaller and less prone to attack...

"Most of the sharks that we have in Florida are fairly small, or midsize animals, say three to six feet long. The much more common sharks are things like Blacktips and Blacknose and Spinner Sharks and Bonnetheads, a little species of Hammerheads."

For more information, visit www.floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by SWFCEE, the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education.

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Cures from shark research

I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.

With a shark attack suspected in the recent death of a swimmer on Florida's Gulf Coast, attention is focused on sharks in Florida. And while many consider only their possible threat, scientists like Bob Hueter are also interested in ways sharks might help people...

"These animals have remarkable wound-healing characteristics... they seem to be relatively disease-free. And they have a documented natural resistance to cancer. And many of those studies have been done at our laboratory over the course of the last 25 years."

Hueter is director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory, where there's ongoing bio-medical research on captive sharks...

"...to try to understand how they are able to resist cancer and the effects of carcinogens, as well as other diseases."

He says scientists are getting closer to unlocking more of the secrets that sharks hold...

"In the bio-medical area, the question of exactly how they are able to fight off the effects of carcinogens and have a natural resistance to cancer is something we really hope to nail down within the next five to ten years."

For more information, visit www.floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by SWFCEE, the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education.

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Man's threat to sharks

I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.

While it might not be obvious, the world's shark population faces a tremendous predator. It is humans in the role of commercial fishing. Bob Hueter is a Florida shark researcher who worries about the number of sharks in the world today...

"Right now they're being harvested world-wide at an all-time high rate. Something approaching 100 million sharks every year."

Not as frequently in the U.S. but elsewhere in the world, shark is a prized catch...

"They are used worldwide for their meat, for their fins -- which are quite valuable -- and for various other things."

But scientists say there's reason to be concerned about the commercial shark fishing trend

"Small scale fisheries have turned to sharks, which is unfortunate because these animals just don't have the kind of biology to support intensive fisheries."

In other words, sharks aren't able replenish their population after intense commercial fishing...

"They're not as productive as other kinds of fish, they grow very slowly and they reproduce very slowly. So we tend to see a boom and bust kind of pattern when this happens. And what we're trying to do here, is head that off with good research and education of people in the fisheries."

For more information, visit www.floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by SWFCEE, the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education.

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The future and past of shark research

I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment.

Scientists who study sharks in Florida say there's much more to the creatures than the predatorial aspect usually played up on TV and in the movies. In addition to studying sharks for possible disease cures, marine biologists like Bob Hueter admire the animals for having changed so little....

"Although they appeared on the scene very early in the evolution of vertebrate animals, they really haven't changed a whole lot since they appeared, indicating they sort of struck on real comprehensive solutions to the basic challenges of life."

One of those solutions comes in the way sharks reproduce...

"They mate just like mammals, they don't spawn. And the females get pregnant, carry the young, and they have in the more advanced sharks a placenta system just like mammals. And they give live birth. Now this is something that sharks came up with several hundred million years ago."

Hueter says these and other features create a tremendous potential for both present and future shark research...

"They seem to have broad-based immune systems that handle disease really well. In some ways, better than our own system, which is ostensibly, more highly evolved."

For more information, visit www.floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University and funded by SWFCEE, the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education.