NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SANDBAR SHARK 



17 



Durino; the entire fishing period along the Ba- 

 hama Banks only 14 E. miJherti were caught in 

 the lot of 447 sharks. Of the total, 197 were 

 reef sharks, Eulamia spj'ingeri (Bigelow and 

 Schroeder). 



Table 3. — Sharks taken in exploratory fishing from the 

 Duskv along edges of northwestern Bahama Banks, 

 May 'l8 to July 8, 1H8 



' Antillean form. 



' Nomenclatorial status of this species not determined. 



During the same season of the year in which 

 the exploratory fishing was done, a great number 

 of sharks were landed across the Gulf Stream at 

 Salerno, Fla.. about 80 miles from the northern 

 end of our Bahama fi.shing area. But more than 

 half of them were E. in.iJberti, and no E. falci- 

 formis was landed. Results of the Bahama fish- 

 ing are summarized in table 3, which shows 

 catches made in two areas off the Bahama Banks. 

 For purposes of camparison, catches made in the 

 Salerno-Fort Pierce area in May and June 1945 

 and 1946 are shown in table 2. The two fishing 

 operations are not exactly comparable, of course, 

 not only because they were carried on in differ- 

 ent years but because the Bahama fishing was 

 essentially exploratory while the Salerno-Fort 

 Pierce fishing was a part of a continuing com- 

 mercial operation concentrated in limited depths 

 and locations. Exploratory fishing with sets .scat- 

 tered in different depths and locations off Salerno 

 would presumably produce a few E. springeri 

 because there are normally a few to be found 

 along inshore reefs adjacent to the St. Lucie Inlet 



at Salerno. This is a poor fishing spot, however, 

 so the commercial vessels rarely caught springeri. 



Distribution in western Gulf of Mexico and western 

 Caribbean 



Positive knowledge of the distribution of 

 Eulamia milherti in the western part of the Gulf 

 of Mexico and along the Caribbean coast of Cen- 

 tral America is based on records of 8 gravid fe- 

 males off the Mississippi River delta, 1 gravid 

 female and 1 young male from the coast of Texas, 

 1 adult male and 2 adult females from the south- 

 central part of the Gulf of Mexico over deep 

 water, and 51 adults from the Caribbean coast of 

 Nicaragua and Costa Rica. 



From the mouth of the Mississippi River east- 

 ward and southward around the Gulf to the 

 vicinity of Tarpon Springs on the Florida west 

 coast, milherti appears to be absent or at least 

 rare from inshore waters out to 30 fathoms. No 

 catches were reported by shark fishermen and no 

 specimens were seen. I should note that while 

 employed in the shark fisherj', seasonal shark- 

 fishing stations were maintained at various times 

 at all of the fishing ports of any consequence 

 from the mouth of the Mississippi River around 

 the tip of Florida to the Carolinas. I visited all 

 of these stations frequently and sometimes par- 

 ticipated in fishing operations. The presence of 

 milherti in appreciable quantity would almost 

 certainly have been noted in catches from the sta- 

 tions at Panama City and Carrabelle, Fla., had 

 specimens been taken. 



It is not possible to present a meaningful ac- 

 count of the sandbar shark, Eulamia milherti, 

 without frequent reference to the bull shark, 

 Cureharhinus leu^'os, and its fresh-water repre- 

 sentative, Carcharhin'us nirm^aguensis (Gill and 

 Bransford). The sandbar shark has been con- 

 fused with the bull shark because of the peculiar 

 manner in which their ranges overlap. ItT-TTddi- 

 tion, bull sharks ajipear to be the most important 

 of the predators on young .sandbar sharks and 

 the primary factor that prevents E. milherti from 

 extending its nursery range into otherwise suita- 

 ble areas in tropical seas. 



As has already been noted, bull .sharks are 

 found along the Atlantic coast as far north as 

 Long Island but increase in numbers somewhat 

 in the latitude of Salerno, Fla.. wliere, as noted in 

 table 2, they were sixth in number of large sharks 



.^M. 



