New Discovery Off Sakhalin: Great Whites Have Made Themselves at Home On Russia’s Eastern Coast
Great white sharks have become regular guests off the coast of Sakhalin. People used to believe that the sharks couldn’t live in the cold island waters. Russian scientists conducted a large-scale revision in the waters of the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering Sea. Sharks turned out to be not the only surprise.
Alexander Krasnopyorov found out which species had enlarged the list of marine fauna and why.
This thirty-second video has collected more than half a million views on the Internet. In 2014, Sakhalin fishermen caught a great white shark weighing more than a ton. To pull it ashore, they had to use an all-terrain vehicle. Islanders share similar finds almost every summer.
"It's scary to even walk around it, it might just bite my leg off. Now that's a monster! It's still alive".
"Pretty scary!"
For a research associate at the Tomsk State University's Department of Ichthyology and Hydrobiology, Yury Dyldin, these shark incursions to the Sakhalin shores became a reason to revise the list of the inhabitants of the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Bering Sea. The revision resulted in voluminous scientific work containing information on 14 species of sharks, two types of chimaeras, and 27 species of rays. 30 marine inhabitants are new to the list.
Yury Dyldin: "Referring to a collectible item, we found a stingray that used to be seen only in the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, and even such occasions were infrequent. That is, it has expanded its area by several thousand kilometers. Even Japanese specialists didn't know about it".
Experts emphasize that the majority of cartilaginous fish found by Tomsk biologists can’t live in island waters all year round. In winter, when the water temperature drops below zero, the subtropics and tropics inhabitants won’t come close to the Sakhalin shores. But in summer, their visits become possible because of the activity of warm currents.
Anatoly Velikanov, the Sakhalin Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography: "Their appearance is associated with warming because they keep close to the waters of certain temperatures, from 15-16 to 20+ degrees Celsius".
The scientists haven't forecast the frequency of shark appearances in Sakhalin waters. More information is needed. Other species return to the local waters together with the cartilaginous fish, for example, sardines, the numbers of which were in decline for more than 20 years. At the end of 2017, the South Kuril Islands' fishermen caught more than 1,500 tons of this warmth-loving fish. The commercial fishing of Ivasi herring will become possible after 2020.
Alexander Krasnopyorov, Pavel Kuksov, Vesti, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands.