A shark scuffle at Kelly Tarlton's has led to the surprise birth of eight premature baby School Shark pups which the curatorial team will nurse until they are strong enough to be released into the wild.
Incredibly the pups emerged, premature but healthy, from a gouge their mother sustained when a Broadnose Sevengill shark took some of its normal seasonal aggression out on her.
The team at Kelly Tarlton's didn't know the adult School shark was pregnant so Kelly Tarlton's Curator, Marine Biologist Andrew Christie, was amazed to see four tiny sharks swim out of the wound - and even more surprised to find four more alive inside when she was treated.
"Ironically the fight their mother got into probably saved these pups' lives! Sharks don't have maternal instincts and just birth or 'drop' their babies and swim off - leaving them incredibly vulnerable. Because we didn't know she was pregnant, and she would be most likely to give birth at night, we probably wouldn't have gotten to the pups in time to move them to a safe, predator free area," says Mr Christie.
The baby School sharks will now stay at Kelly Tarlton's for 6-8 weeks, being closely monitored and fed up on a diet of Herring and Mullet to give them the best chance of survival once they are released.
Mr Christie says sharks have developed a fearsome reputation but that, even when talking about more aggressive sharks, we need to keep the risk in perspective. There have been no fatal shark attacks in New Zealand since 1974 and every year more people die from bees, toasters and Christmas lights than from shark attacks. In fact, Mr Christie says statistically you are 99 times more likely to be struck by lightening twice than to be attacked by a shark.