Shark rescue at Skittle Alley - by Ben Reilly

Today has been the best to date - our aim was to catch lemon sharks larger than 1.2m for visiting scientist, Evan Byrnes, who is using respirometry to study metabolic rate in sub-adult lemon (Negaprion brevirostris) sharks.

We started the day slowly baking in the sun but protected by the shore from the wind. We chose a spot where the water rushes out of the mangroves when the tide is falling, the theory being that as the water became shallower the prey would be forced to the fringes of the mangroves, thus less protected and more vulnerable to attack from larger lemon sharks.

We had interest immediately, in the form of juvenile lemons and a nurse shark, which were not what we were looking for. The tide slackened off and the water barely moved. We decided to move 50 yards west to another outlet where our chum could flow out to sea, enticing all those with good smell to our drive thru! Again the juveniles hounded us and with the sun reaching its peak ferocity and the wind whipping up we all started to lose hope and patience. Evan offered round his Skittles to his demoralised crew. Ryan, another volunteer, dropped one into the bottom of the boat which had a slurry of fish blood and guts in the bottom. Upset that he had let this tasty morsel go he gifted it to the shark gods and prayed for a lemon. Almost as if the lemon god had heard us an overjoyed Ryan shouted out, pointing in the direction of a good sized shadow. Within minutes, the little beauty was caught and pulled in to the edge of the boat, tail-roped and held in position by its dorsal fin. A quick measure to check his size and at 125cm, he was big enough for trials. We wrapped a DIY stretcher under the shark, pulling 2 poles together and lifting him up in the hammock from the water to a transport tub on the boat. The hook was quickly removed before we took a 5 minute journey back to the Sharklab beach, where the reverse stretcher technique got him safely into a semi-captive pen. After a few mandatory high 5's we returned to what we had now christened 'Skittle Alley'.

We returned to find a second lemon shark already hanging around our bait box. We set the lines and waited. Before long, number two was in the bag, just marginally bigger than the first at 127cm.

It was getting late and we were ready to pull the lines when Riley, a fellow volunteer with her feet dangling in the water, noticed something swim underneath her. Feet quickly out of the water we all dashed to look. With the sun setting and the wind breaking the surface it made it difficult to work out. It was a shark but we were unsure of the species - it was big and odd. Assistant manager Hannah realised that the shark had got something wrapped around it.

Metal gasket found wrapped around the 125cm lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris) © Ryan Cake

It was a lemon, but not as we know them. Time and time again he circled, dragging up sand as he went along. Still no one knew what the obstruction was. We agreed dinner, now waiting for us, would have to wait a bit longer. We were going nowhere until we had freed this shark. Finally he bit, and we got him to the surface only to reveal a metal gasket, a thin piece of metal that goes between the top and the bottom halves of an engine, was stuck around the pectoral fins and up to the dorsal fin. The damage caused by this man-made product wasn't immediately visible until we managed to cut it off. We grabbed a camera to document the injuries as they unfolded. We managed to cut the loop encompassing the body off and gently peeled it away until we got to the pec fins, where we had to slide them an inch out of the tissue - it had cut in like razor blades.

Laceration from the metal gasket on the belly of a lemon shark © Ryan Cake

Having trouble freeing the loop from the sharks belly, we turned him into tonic immobility and were aghast at the sight of an inch-deep laceration around the circumference of his girth. The metal gasket only held in one place, from skin that was healing over the top of the metal. Enveloping the foreign object, obviously this shark had worn this necklace for some extended period of time. Finally he was free and with hook removed, he swam away strong.

This shark was previously caught and tagged in April 2018, so it will be interesting to see if we meet him again and to see his recovery. Evan was in no uncertain terms sure that he would now make a full recovery. We returned for dinner, story telling and bed with a good feeling of having helped one of god's creatures out!

Smiles all round after freeing the shark!  © Ryan Cake