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The status of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) in Turkey's waters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2014

Hakan Kabasakal
Hakan Kabasakal*
Affiliation:
Ichthyological Research Society, Tantavi Mahallesi, Menteşoğlu Caddesi, İdil Apartmanı No: 30 D: 4, Ümraniye, TR-34764 İstanbul, Turkey
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: H. Kabasakal, Ichthyological Research Society, Tantavi Mahallesi, Menteşoğlu Caddesi, İdil Apartmanı No: 30 D: 4, Ümraniye TR-34764 İstanbul, Turkey email: kabasakal.hakan@gmail.com
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Abstract

Forty-six individuals of Carcharodon carcharias were either recorded or sighted in Turkey's waters during a period from February 1881 to 28 September 2011. Total lengths (TLs) of the recorded great white sharks ranged from 85 cm TL to ~800 cm TL, and mass ranged between 12 kg and ~4500 kg. Three non-fatal shark attacks on boats of tuna hand-liners were also recorded. A North Aegean Sea specimen (85 cm TL; sp No. 45; Table 1) caught by a coastal trammel netter in Edremit Bay on July 6, 2011, is possibly the smallest neonate white shark from Mediterranean waters to date. Due to intensification of tuna fishing and the resulting decline or extinction of tuna stocks, C. carcharias is now apparently extinct from marmaric and bosphoric waters. Capture of 6 neonate great white sharks between 2008 and 2011, in the same period of the year (from late June to early July), in the waters of Edremit Bay (northern Aegean Sea, Turkey) suggests the possibility of a breeding ground in the region. The growing tuna farm industry offers a new possibility for encounters between humans and great white sharks off the Turkish coast.

Keywords

white sharkCarcharodon carchariasTurkeyeastern Mediterraneanoccurrence
Type
Review Article
Information
Marine Biodiversity Records , Volume 7 , 2014 , e109
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2014 

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