You have to give me a pass this week! I know my goal was to do a maximum of one ocean animal every two weeks and that last week’s was technically an ocean animal, BUT I have a good reason. Over this past weekend I was in Baltimore with Penn State’s SWE Chapter for a regional conference and since we were already there, I just had to visit the National Aquarium! All of the animals there were magnificent (I will gladly show you pictures for hours on end if you show any interest). So naturally, I want to share with you one of the endangered animals that I got to see in person. This week’s animal is the beautiful sand tiger shark!
While these cuties are a little bit on the scary side with all of their jagged teeth, I love them! Once again, sharks have always had a special spot in my heart. I had a shark book that I read all the time when I was little, and I loved to share the cool facts that I learned with my friends. I am sad to say that this sea creature was not featured in any capacity in Finding Nemo or Finding Dory so there is not a cute clip from a movie this week. However, they do have a striking resemblance to the shark torpedoes many kids played within the pool or bathtub once upon a time.
Back to the sand tiger shark, a real and endangered animal. These cuties are anywhere from seven to ten feet long on average and weigh 200-300 pounds. They have a stout, pointed oval shape and a tail who’s top part is notably longer than the bottom.
Despite its frightening appearance, the sand tiger shark is regarded as a nonaggressive towards humans. They prefer to eat bony fish, other sharks, lobsters, crabs, rays, squids, and just about anything they want, working with other sand tiger sharks to hunt what they have a hankering for. They prefer to live on warm coasts, trolling the bottom close to the sand, hence their name. They, however, can be found to reside in areas as deep as 625 ft below the surface. As far as coastal locations, they are known to be present on all warm watered coasts except in the Eastern Pacific oceans.
![](https://sites.psu.edu/savetheanimals/files/2019/02/IMG_0608-159zi0b-225x300.jpg)
The sand tiger shark is currently listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (ICNU) Red List and is being considered for the United States’ endangered list. They are listed as protected in the United States, New Guinea, and Australia. While there is no current population estimate, the species is noted to be on a declining trend. This is due to a few combined reasons. In addition to being killed for commercial sales and sport, these sharks suffer from habitat destruction. They have one of the lowest reproduction rates in sharks- only producing one or two babies every two years- so any loss to the population is significant.
As far as helping them, there is not a whole lot more we can do. They are listed as protected in the US, making it illegal to kill them (you get fined if you do). However, there are no popular foundations taking steps to help this species. This leaves us normal people with a similar solution as last week- take steps to keep the environment clean and support bills and representatives that push for environmentally positive changes.
![](https://sites.psu.edu/savetheanimals/files/2019/02/33020-18aqzbd-300x225.jpg)
I hope you learned enough about the Sand Tiger shark to think it is more than just a scary face. As far as my recent trip, I highly recommend the National Aquarium in Baltimore and, should you get the chance to go, please please please take me with you!
I love friendly sharks! These are adorable. I always loved watching cartoon movies with sharks, like shark tale!! That movie was bomb LOL. The only shark I would be accepting of it being endangered is great whites. Of course, they are super dangerous and are not endangered (that I know of).
I love the Baltimore Aquarium! It’s so cool that you were able to see the animal you were blogging about this week in real life. I had no idea that any type of shark swims up to the surface to breathe air, that’s so interesting!
i am doing a project on sand tigers and would like to know the most intersting thing you have found on them
Did you know it takes 42 licks to get to the center of a sand tiger?
Who the hell is steve jobs?