LIHUE — Visitors to Kauai’s coastal multi-use path Wednesday morning caught a rare glimpse of a 7 to 8-foot-long blue shark after it washed ashore overnight. Mary Miyashiro said she and her husband Lloyd, both volunteers with the National Oceanic
LIHUE — Visitors to Kauai’s coastal multi-use path Wednesday morning caught a rare glimpse of a 7 to 8-foot-long blue shark after it washed ashore overnight.
Mary Miyashiro said she and her husband Lloyd, both volunteers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s monk seal response program, were monitoring a resident monk seal north of Kapaa Tuesday evening when walkers alerted them of the struggling animal.
Initially, the shark was alive and trapped along the rocky shoreline near the Kaiakea fire station, according to Mary.
“We checked on it (again) this morning and it had died,” she said.
Don Heacock, a fisheries biologist with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, responded to the area Wednesday morning. With the help of the Miyashiros and other volunteers, he was able to load the shark in his truck and haul it away.
He said it was clear that the adult female died after being incidentally caught by longliner fishermen.
“I’m not going to do an autopsy because I know how she died,” he said. “You can see where the hook was in the corner of her mouth.”
The shark also suffered from embolism, a result of being reeled up to the surface too quickly by the longliner’s powerful hydraulic reel, according to Heacock.
“It did look to me like she had just given birth,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised, she may have aborted all those pups when they were bringing her up from deep water.”
In the last few years, Heacock remembers only one or two blue sharks washing ashore as a result of incidental catches. He said the female was almost certainly caught and immediately thrown overboard.
“Was this a waste? Yes,” he said. Blue sharks are among the most abundant and far-ranging of all sharks, found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. They can reach lengths of up to 12 feet and are easily distinguished by their long pectoral fins.
Like many sharks, blues are countershaded — dark on top and white on their underside — so that predators, such as mako sharks, can’t see them from above or below, according to Heacock.
“They are beautiful animals, very graceful,” he said.
In order to prevent “odor pollution” in the area, Heacock said he buried the shark on his 25-acre farm.
