Basking shark sightings?

[Mortuus]

I read that the Puget Sound has basking sharks, but I did some searches and cant really find much info on them being here. Was it the sort of thing where people saw them once or twice and declared they were Puget Sound residents? Whats the deal here?

Basking sharks aside, I also read that there are 11 varieties of sharks in the Puget Sound. So I was also wondering how many of these have been sighted on SCUBA. Sixgills, dogfish, and apparently salmon sharks all have been, but are there any sightings of the others? One site even suggested that there were threshers living in the sound, which I have a very hard time believing.

[lundysd]

There is a potential sighting of a great white several decades ago -- no photos, but the guy who reported it was apparently rather credible...

Salmon shark sightings are SUPER rare AFAIK, and I've never heard of a thresher sighting (or a sevengill)

[fmerkel]

I believe I heard Jeff Christiansen (Aquarium) say that basking sharks were occasional a long time ago. They were wiped out ages ago.

[CaptnJack]

Salmon shark sightings are SUPER rare AFAIK, and I've never heard of a thresher sighting (or a sevengill)

Heck, sixgills are fairly "common" and we went 3+ years without a sighting and that included aquarium chumming and hundreds of hours of "bottom time" via remote video analysis.

[Greg Jensen]

Sevengills often occur in shallow, poor-visibility bays- they are fairly common in Willapa Bay, for example- and have been recorded from south Puget Sound. I suspect they're kind of like sturgeon; that is, they're around but in areas where few or no people dive.
Threshers have been taken in the San Juans but I don't know of any in Puget Sound proper.
Salmon sharks have been found in central Puget Sound, and there's even a record of a sleeper shark from the Seattle area.
Basking sharks were systematically eliminated by the Canadian government back in the '70's. When I was a kid in the '60's they would show up occasionally off our place in southern Hood Canal, and there's also a record of them from near Seattle.

[boydski]

I have seen a sevengill shark (pulled up by a fisherman in Hammersly Inlet) and I do remember seeing a Basking Shark that was hit by a boat ( in South Puget Sound in the late 60's).

Of course back then, I thought you had to be absolutely crazy to go Scuba Diving!
Now I KNOW....

[spatman]

Basking sharks were systematically eliminated by the Canadian government back in the '70's.

Why?

[boydski]

Why?

They were getting tangled in the commercial fishing nets. Sad but true, from 1945 to 1970 the Canadian Government eradicated Basking Sharks.

Now (as of 2008), they are trying to locate and protect them, but have only had six sightings in 12 years.

[Mortuus]

Why?

They were getting tangled in the commercial fishing nets. Sad but true, from 1945 to 1970 the Canadian Government eradicated Basking Sharks.

Now (as of 2008), they are trying to locate and protect them, but have only had six sightings in 12 years.

That's disappointing, to say the least

[Greg Jensen]

If you go to the museum in Port Alberni, you can see the giant knife that they put on the front of one of their ships and then used to ram and cut them in half.
There's an excellent little book on the subject:

[oldsalt]

Mortuus: Eleven species corresponds to what my copy of Pacific Fishes of Canada by J.L. Hart says. This includes accidentals and such things as the Brown Cat Shark (I'm not making this up.) which Hart says is found in depths from 150 to 950 meters. I have only seen the dogfish and salmon shark in Washington waters and I consider any shark sighting, even the dogfish, a treat. I have seen some large sharks which I didn't identify from boats and ships off the coast. Reports of basking sharks pop up every now and then. One was snared off Shilshoe a few years ago. I have never seen a six-gill. One of the reasons I still dive, is the chance I will see something new.
-Curt

[jerryehrlich]

I have seen a sevengill shark (pulled up by a fisherman in Hammersly Inlet) and I do remember seeing a Basking Shark that was hit by a boat ( in South Puget Sound in the late 60's).

Of course back then, I thought you had to be absolutely crazy to go Scuba Diving!
Now I KNOW....

Growing up in Boston Harbor, 8 miles north of Olympia, I remember the occasional sighting. It's interesting, that the entrance to Hammersley Inlet is where one of the sightings took place.

Jerry