Breathe Deep; Infamous Sharks Provide Oxygen

Yoga and meditation enthusiasts typically teach slow-breathing techniques. Usually, they go something like this: Inhale through the nose, and exhale out the mouth, ever so slowly, as though cooling a full bowl of soup.

They don't think to thank a shark for the oxygen.

The abundance of bait fish, seagrass beds, mangrove shorelines and nearshore reefs in Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor has made the area a primary food source and nursery for sharks.

Capt. Scott Moore of Anna Maria Island recently fished Boca Grande Pass in Charlotte County and said he is seeing more bull sharks than ever.

“We caught nine tarpon the other day,” Moore said, “and eight we had to break off because sharks were after them.”

Tarpon anglers are not always fans of sharks.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, look to protect sharks because sharks help balance the oceans.

Sharks, many species of which are considered endangered, play an important role as an apex predator.

The scary part? Seventy percent of the world's oxygen comes from phytoplankton. Sharks, as an apex predator, feed on many of these plankton-eating fish. Slapped with a stigma as people-killers from the popular "Jaws" series, sharks actually save lives — they help provide the world's oxygen supply.

Brent Winner, a marine biologist at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, said if sharks were to be wiped out, species sharks normally feed on would explode in population, leading to an unbalanced and potentially harmful ecosystem. Sharks also feed on sick and dying species, which, by natural selection, kills weaker species and allows hearty species to live and possibly enter the gene pool.

“Sharks don't always go after the strong species; they go after compromised individuals,” Winner said. “They're definitely looking for an easy meal.”

Sharks are well-known for slicing through a hooked tarpon, or preying off a tarpon that has been released and is lethargic due to fish fights that can last hours.

“Shark! Open your bail!” is a common phrase of tarpon anglers. Once a shark is spotted, the angler flips his or her spool to allow line to run out, giving the tarpon a chance to escape.

Shark-fishing is relatively popular offshore, in bays, off piers and along the beaches. Kids tend to have an affinity for catching them. As Capt. Mike Myers of Reel Shark Fishing Charters said, “They love catching anything that could eat them.”

But anglers who target sharks are encouraged to practice catch-and-release.

“There are a lot more protections on species that grow slowly,” Winner said, "because they don't have as many young, and those populations have a hard time getting back.”

According to the FWC's online saltwater regulations chart, anglers can keep one shark per harvester or two per vessel per day — whichever is less. Sharks must be a minimum of 54 inches in length to the fork for all species except Atlantic sharpnose, blacknose, blacktip, bonnethead, finetooth and smooth dogfish. Sharks must remain in whole condition until landed ashore (heads, fins, tail intact) and their harvest is prohibited with the use of any multiple hook in conjunction with live or dead natural bait.

Commercial fishermen have taken much blame over the the past several decades for targeting sharks. According to the online version of the New World Encyclopedia, “… it is estimated that every year 26 to 73 million sharks are killed by people in commercial endeavors aimed at harvesting their fins, which are used in shark fin soup and are the most economically valuable part of the sharks.”

But recreational anglers must take blame as well.

“Many point their finger at the commercial industry, but recreational anglers have played a part, especially in the post-'Jaws' era,” Winner said. “we started seeing kill tournaments and basically they'd bring all the dead sharks back to the weigh-in. These days you rarely see those kill tournaments, and when you do people are in an uproar.”