Discover The Largest Hammerhead Shark Ever Caught In Florida

Sharks are probably the most feared creatures in the ocean, yet human attacks on sharks are vastly more frequent than shark attacks on humans. This is especially the case with hammerhead sharks, one of the most unusual looking of all shark species. Until relatively recently, it was legal to fish for hammerheads in Florida waters. They were a favorite with sport fishermen because of the tenacious fight they put up. Now, because of their endangered conservation status, fishing for them is illegal in the state of Florida. In this article, we’ll learn more about this unique creature as well as the record for the largest hammerhead shark ever caught in Florida.

All About Hammerhead Sharks

Hammerhead sharks are in the family of sharks known as Sphyrnidae, which have a distinctive “hammer” shaped head. This gives the shark an advantage in eyesight because widely placed eyes provide better binocular vision and depth perception. The nine different species of hammerheads have heads with slightly different shapes and come in different sizes. Generally speaking, they can range from 3 to 19 feet long and from 7 to 1,300 pounds. Compared to other shark species, they have small mouths. There are nine species of hammerheads, but the largest is the great hammerhead.

Habitat

Hammerheads live in the warm coastal waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. In the summer they migrate in large schools to cooler waters. They usually stay in shallower waters, up to 262 feet deep, but have been found in ocean depths as far down as 984 feet. Their color provides them with camouflage when viewed from above or below. From above, their light greenish-grey backs blend into the coloration of the seabed, while when viewed from below their white bellies help obscure them against the bright sunlight shining through the water.

Behavior

An unusual thing about hammerhead sharks is that they swim in schools of up to 100 individuals during the day and are solitary at night when they’re hunting. Most other shark species live solitary lives. Schools of hammerheads are sometimes segregated by age and sex. They like to swim along the seabed and move their heads from side to side, scanning for prey, in a motion that looks a lot like a person sweeping the ground with a metal detector.

Diet

Hammerhead sharks eat all kinds of different marine life, including fish, crabs, shrimp, crustaceans, squid, octopus, stingrays, and other sharks. These sharks have an unusual hunting method for stingrays, using their heads to hold them down on the bottom until they become too weak from struggling to resist any further. When caught, some hammerheads have multiple stingray barbs embedded in their flesh. Great hammerheads can be cannibalistic, sometimes even eating their own offspring. A species known as S. tiburo is one of only two known omnivorous species of sharks, the other being the whale shark. Dissection of S. tiburo stomach contents shows that up to half their stomach contents may be made up of seagrass.

Reproduction

Hammerhead sharks give birth to live young, called pups, in litters of 20-40. At birth, they are 20-28 inches long and are completely on their own, receiving no help from their parents. They tend to school together in shallow bays and coastal waters that act as their “nurseries” to protect them from predators until they are big enough to go into deeper waters and hunt individually. They reach maturity at anywhere from 7-10 feet long. Because some species, such as the great hammerhead, can be cannibalistic, the pups have to steer clear of adults of their own species as well as predators of other species.

Are Hammerhead Sharks Dangerous?

Hammerhead sharks sometimes show curiosity in divers and sometimes come close to humans in the shallow waters of beaches but are not considered a threat to humans. According to the International Shark Attack File, for nearly the past 450 years there have been only 17 documented accounts of unprovoked attacks by hammerhead sharks on human beings and no human fatalities. We could speculate that because hammerheads are generally expecting to find food near the ocean floor, and because they have relatively small mouths and eat smaller prey than humans, they simply don’t see humans in the category of potential food. Contrast this with a seal-eating species like the great white shark, for example, and it becomes clearer how they could mistake a human for a potential meal, especially as people generally swim near the surface as a seal does.

Record Hammerhead Catches

Reportedly, the largest hammerhead shark ever caught in Florida was captured in 1906 and weighed over 1,500 pounds! However, with older records like this, we always have some questions about the accuracy of the weighing methods.

In more modern times the record for the largest hammerhead shark ever caught in Florida goes to Captain Bucky Dennis who hauled in a 1,280-pound, 14.5-foot-long great hammerhead from the gulf of Mexico on May 5, 2009. The shark’s head was a massive 3 feet wide. Hammerhead sharks are noted as fierce fighters, and this one didn’t disappoint. It put up a 5-hour fight and dragged the fishing boat 12 miles from Boca Grande Pass. Captain Dennis used a 130-pound test line and a 24-pound stingray as bait. The shark was donated to the Center for Shark Research of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.

This record for the largest hammerhead shark ever caught in Florida is unlikely to be broken anytime soon, as many species of this shark are endangered, and the great hammerhead in particular is critically endangered. Florida fishing regulations were changed in 2012 to strictly prohibit fishing for them. Federal regulations also prohibit fishing for them in federal waters, which are considered to be more than 3 nautical miles offshore.

There Is Florida Located On A Map?

Florida is in the southeastern region of the United States and is bordered by Alabama to the northwest, Georgia to the north, the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The Gulf of Mexico borders the southeastern coast of North America and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Straits of Florida. It runs between the peninsula of Florida and the island of Cuba, and to the Caribbean Sea by the Yucatán Channel.

Threats To Hammerhead Sharks

The main threats to hammerhead sharks are human beings. Shark habitats are degraded in some areas by pollution and the heavy recreational and commercial development of some coastal areas. Overfishing of some of their prey species can make it harder for them to sustain their numbers.

In many parts of the world, hammerheads are still hunted for their fins. They are considered some of the best quality shark fins for eating. An estimated 375,000 great hammerhead sharks are traded in the international fish markets, particularly in Asia. In a few countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Kenya, and Japan, shark meat is consumed. But in most of the world, only the fins are eaten, and the rest of the meat is thrown away. Obviously, this seems to be a gigantic waste. Consider though that mercury and other pollutants can accumulate to dangerous levels in marine creatures. This is especially true of older and larger creatures that have had more time to absorb higher levels of toxins.

It’s ironic that sharks inspire such huge fear in humans. We kill many more of them than they do us. The hammerhead shark in particular does not pose much of a threat to human beings. Hopefully, their populations can be managed globally. In this way, this uniquely interesting creature will recover from its critically endangered status.

The photo featured at the top of this post is © Sail Far Dive Deep/Shutterstock.com