When you purchase through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it work .
As the Arctic flak continues to roil the Eastern Seaboard with gusty winds and frigid temperature , at least four thrasher shark have been base frozen off the coast of Cape Cod .
Is Old Man Winter to blame ? Probably not , as the sharks likely died not from hypothermia but from ground themselves in shallow waters as they undertake to transmigrate to the south , according to Greg Skomal , the senior fisheries scientist who lead the shark enquiry broadcast for the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game .
A frozen, dead thresher shark washed up on Cape Cod at the end of December.
Unlike spicy sharks , mako shark sharks and basking sharks , thrasher sharks tend to linger in the Gulf of Maine until late December , Skomal tell . Characterized by their foresightful , scythe - like tails , the brute possess endothermic abilities , think they can retain their metabolic heat to a certain extent . [ On the verge : A Gallery of Wild Sharks ]
Indeed , a recent tagging survey found that the animals leave waters only when they dip below temperatures of 46 degrees Fahrenheit ( 8 degree Celsius ) . As a event , many of them do n’t start their journeying to warm climate before midwinter .
But the current cold crack , a result of a jet current that’schanneling Arctic airfrom northwest Canada , has ushered a spate of speedy cooling , forcing thesharksto scurry south with new urging . And theshape of Cape Cod , with its sandy , lure - like sound projection , panoptic mudflats and utmost tidal fluctuations , can prove especially punic if you ’re navigating carelessly , according to Skomal .
One scientist thinks the thresher sharks on Cape Cod died before they froze.
" If you attend at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe of Cape Cod as a landmass , it really is kind of a natural trap , " Skomal said . " Some of the sharks belike dumbfound around Cape Cod and moved to the eastern United States of Cape Cod , while others made the error of move closer to shore and got caught inside Cape Cod Bay , becoming set up in the landmass . "
Skomal admits that the scenario he ’s discover is divinatory . " There [ are ] a number of scenarios that can spiel out here and we do n’t sleep with which one is correct , " he articulate .
Even postmortem examination of the carcasses have proven unhelpful .
Thresher sharks, like this one that washed up on a Cape Cod beach, can be recognized by the long upper part of their caudal fin (or tail).
" There ’s not much you could do to determine what caused [ a shark ’s ] death if there ’s no preindication of chronic organ damage or something to that burden , " Skomal say . " You really just ca n’t tell if it ’s some other grounds like dramatic alteration in temperature or respiratory failure . "
What experts do get it on , however , is that that chances of survival for a beached shark are slim to none .
While air - breathing shipboard soldier animals like whales , dolphin and turtles can knuckle under to stale shock as a cause of last after washing up onshore , simply by virtue of being alive , the thresher shark were probably long dead before they froze , Skomal said .
" When shark get in super - shallow water , particularly in tidal domain , they ca n’t negotiate well around sandbar and shoaling systems and the changes that occur in depth with tide , " Skomal said . " And they tend to strand in these shallow water areas . That leads to their demise fairly quickly because they ca n’t suspire , so in essence , they drown . "
Original clause onLive scientific discipline .
