The egg, also called a mermaid’s purse, was shipped from Sea Life Sydney Aquarium. Shark caretaker Kyra Wicaksono uses a light to illuminate a zebra shark embryo inside its egg case at a new shark nursery in southern Raja Ampat. "ReShark is putting endangered sharks back into the sea, where they belong, into places they will now be protected. "ReShark is about action not words on paper," Doubilet and Hayes told Newsweek. The StAR Project involves releasing zebra shark pups in Raja Ampat that have been bred in aquariums around the world to create a self-sustaining population. While numerous rewinding efforts have taken place on land across the world, no reintroduction of endangered sharks has taken place at this scale before. The project is the first major global effort to restore an endangered shark population. This is where the StAR Project comes in, which is being led by the West Papua Provincial Government and the Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia. Research has shown that additional interventions on top of fishing regulations and the creation of protected areas will be required to restore their numbers. Zebra sharks, like many other sharks, have a slow population growth rate. David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, National Geographic Fishing boats once packed these remote waters, nearly wiping out zebra sharks, but now it is a marine protected area. The Wayag Islands in northern Raja Ampat are a labyrinth of sandy beaches, turquoise lagoons and atolls broken by limestone towers. Zebra shark populations have not followed suit though, and they remain on the verge of extinction here. These protection measures have contributed to significant recoveries in the populations of other shark species in the region. However, it is now home to some of the world's most well-enforced marine protected areas.
The waters of Raja Ampat were once dominated by fishing activities. As a result, ReShark says restoring populations of these sharks in areas where they have disappeared, such as Raja Ampat, will balance and improve the health of these marine ecosystems.
Zebra sharks play a key role as predators in the ecosystems where they are found, helping to maintain the food web. They hunt at night, generally feeding on mollusks, crustaceans and small bony fish. They are an inshore shark, living over sand, rock reefs and coral bottoms. Its fins are also used to make soup, a delicacy in China. The species is prized for its meat and is hunted and sold throughout the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. However, their populations are at risk of extinction everywhere outside of Australian waters. The species, which can grow to around 8 feet in length, is found in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans. Zebra sharks are classified as an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Between 20, scientists only documented three zebra sharks in the area, National Geographic reported. Zebra sharks had all but disappeared in Raja Ampat as a result of habitat degradation and overfishing.
Zebra shark photos free#
Ichida had released Charlie, Kathlyn’s older sibling, and the very first shark set free through this program, 20 minutes earlier. As well as its liver for vitamins, shark fin soup is made from its fins.Scientist Nesha Ichida with ReShark releases the juvenile zebra shark Kathlyn in Indonesia’s Wayag Islands. Many inshore fisheries take the zebra shark for its meat, which may be sold fresh or salt-dried in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and other countries. Their ability to wriggle into narrow crevices and caves allows them to find food here, such as small fish, snails, sea urchins, crabs and other small invertebrates. As the zebra shark ages, it sheds its black-and-white stripes for small black dots on a tan body, closely resembling the leopard. A large shark that undergoes a radical transformation in coloration with age, this animal lives in shallow coral reef habitats in warm tropical waters. Kathlyn and Charlie (a male zebra shark that had been released earlier that day) were a beacon of hope for scientists from aquariums around the world that were working together to rebuild the wild population of zebra sharks that have been wiped out from overfishing and shark finning. Kathlyn wriggled out of Nesha’s hands into the waters of Indonesia’s Wayag Islands, the first time she would swim out in the open ocean.
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