‘Cool’ catch

Fisherman reports catching sharks twice this week in waters near Tracadie

Finding a shark in a fishing net might unnerve some people. Not Jeffrey Shaffer. “I thought it was pretty cool,” he said.

Shaffer, who is a crab fisherman, said the boat he works on had its bait nets in the water this week about a mile offshore near Tracadie. Twice they pulled up the nets to find sharks tangled up in them. Those sharks weren’t unique with Shaffer saying two of his friends also caught some recently. Another was out cod fishing and lost a fish to a shark that grabbed it off the end of the line, Shaffer said.

It didn’t take long for the fishermen on the boat Shaffer works on to notice they were sharks because he said they could tell something heavy was caught in the nets. They saw the sharks soon after. “I thought it was awesome — two in a week,” Shaffer said.

Both of the sharks on Shaffer’s boat were dead, and he estimated the biggest was about six feet long. The crew threw them both overboard once they were free of the nets. Shaffer posted pictures of their catch on Facebook, which helped Fisheries and Oceans Canada aquatic fisheries technician Warren Joyce identify them as female porbeagle sharks. Joyce said the porbeagles aren’t new to the area and are the most common species in Canadian waters. There are about 250,000 of them.

Joyce said earlier in the summer he was telling people it was an average year for shark sightings in the region, but the numbers have gone up slightly since then.

“I wouldn’t say it’s anything out of the ordinary though,” he said. Porbeagle sharks live in colder waters and may follow prey closer to land, but Joyce said they aren’t a risk to people.

“They’re pretty benign to humans,” he said. Joyce said if anyone sees a porbeagle shark they should use common sense because they are large predators. “Observe them from a distance and use caution and enjoy the view because they are interesting to see,” he said. For Shaffer, he’s heard other people say they won’t swim near Grand Tracadie any more. He said he’s not too worried and plans to meet up with a diver to get a look at other sharks in the water. “It would be kind of neat to see them down there.” Fisherman Gary Clow examines a porbeagle shark that was found tangled in fishing nets about a mile offshore near Tracadie.