How Baby Sharks Navigate the World (Full Episode) | Baby Sharks

sharks are big fast Fierce predators but in their first year of life they are surprisingly vulnerable to stay alive they can walk out of water live in rivers and even eat their siblings all in the fight to make it as a baby shark sharks are formidable Hunters that have evolved over 450 million years they are the most feared creatures in our seas great whites with the power to LEAP 10 feet into the air Mako with speeds of over 45 miles per hour but baby sharks don't start out this way in fact they're a target for Predators including other sharks around 80 percent of some shark species won't make it to adulthood adult sharks don't spend any time caring for their newborns a baby shark is just another item on their menu which is why some pregnant sharks like this one travel to shallow water to give birth where big predators just can't go exactly where sharks are born is largely still a mystery so this footage of a shark berth is extremely rare once born many sharks remain in the safety of the shallows in areas known as nurseries like this one near tropical Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef the reef is home to more than 1600 species of fish 82 of them sharks this black tip reef shark was born just a few days ago near the mangroves lining the shore the above ground root system offers protection to baby black tips and many other small animals as well at around 20 inches in length this young black tip is a quarter of the size of an adult black tips are able to swim from the moment they're born they Dart among the Tangled roots in Nature's playground but there is no time to play when you're a hungry baby shark luckily his mother left him a part in gift black tips like many shark pups are born with extra fats stored in their liver giving them enough energy to explore their environment as they learn to hunt for food [Music] venturing into the shallow bay presents opportunities for a larger meal [Music] at three months old he's still quite small but within a year he'll double in length four times the growth rate of a human baby what he lacks in size he makes up for in speed [Music] black tips hunt with bursts of over 20 feet per second he will spend his first 15 months hunting small fish crabs and octopus big enough to travel out to the reef with the adults [Music] further south in cooler Waters a bigger shark with a bad reputation gives birth on our doorstep [Music] in estuaries and rivers where fresh water meets the sea you'll find bull sharks bull sharks are deadly and the most versatile of all sharks they are the only shark species that can move between salt water and fresh water with special glands near their tail they are able to regulate salt levels in their massive bodies that means they can swim a little too close to home along beaches and rivers making human encounters more frequent than with any other shark but why swim in fresh water with a vast ocean to exploit one reason is to give their babies the best chance of survival bull sharks choose shallow water estuaries to give birth to their young far from where any other shark species can go a newborn bull shark is about as long as a human arm less than three feet from birth they have the ability to live in fresh or salt water but a receding tide can leave a baby shark trapped and in grave Danger despite the safety of river systems Predators lurk and baby bull sharks have few defenses [Music] here on Australia's Central East Coast crocodiles are not a threat young bull sharks face other pressures like pollution and habitat loss which is why Dr Amy smoothie is here to help track their movements so these sharks are vulnerable at these early life stages if really important to understand their movements and behaviors so that we can learn about what type of habitats they're utilizing so that we ultimately can understand where they're going when and protect the Sharks and their habitats that they're using to catch and tag baby bull sharks Amy and fisherman Troy billin have been out setting lines early in the morning when the sharks are most active pregnant females come into the Estuary to give birth late spring early summer we're not sure exactly how many sharks are in the Estuary but what we do know is that the Clarence river is a pupping area and it's a nursery for bull sharks foreign as the sun rises Troy and Amy begin to check the lines oh yes we yes we oh hello there's a little male bull shark and you can see that it's umbilical scar that was present is still open it's just starting to close over so it's likely that this shark has been born a few weeks ago what a beautiful looking fish male bull shark wonderful many people think of bull sharks as big man-eating Predators however they're not that they're an apex predator that's incredibly important to keep a balanced Marine ecosystem he is 81 centimeters long or two foot eight turning the young shark on his back puts him into a state of tonic immobility making it easier for a doctor's smoothie to perform minor surgery so right now I'm just going to make a small surgical incision in the abdomen I'm inserting the acoustic tag unlike a satellite fin tag this small device is inserted internally and we are able to identify the shark when it comes within 500 meters of a listening station satellite tags only receive data when a shark surfaces but the acoustic tag lets Amy track the shark's movements with an underwater receiver and it will work for up to 10 years previous tracking has shown baby bull sharks are incredibly active in estuaries traveling more than 60 miles upriver you are an important apex predator and I hope I get to see you one day in Sydney Harbor by following baby bull sharks as they grow we can hope to understand how they use their environment and how bull sharks and humans can better coexist by about five years old this shark could pose a threat to smaller baby sharks [Music] foreign luckily he'll be big enough to expand his hunting ground out to sea further north on Australia's East Coast the babies of another shark face cannibalism in the womb the sand tiger shark is one of the most ferocious looking sharks up to 10 feet long and over 300 pounds these adults are big and intimidating thankfully sand tigers are extremely docile toward humans often referred to as the Labradors of the sea sand tigers give birth only once every two years and they never birth more than two Pops at a time they have the lowest reproductive rate of any shark this makes them particularly vulnerable and their babies especially precious one of the most important breeding grounds on the planet for the sand tiger shark is here just off Rainbow Beach in Queensland Australia a place called wolf Rock volcanic Pinnacles jut up from the Sandy Bottom creating a sheltered Oasis in a blue desert it's a biodiversity hot spot for fish race and turtles with such a concentration of shark food it's a perfect place for sand tigers after mating they gather here in the hundreds the females will stay here for several months as their babies develop sand tiger sharks have two wombs and over a 12-month gestation period produce hundreds of eggs up to six embryos will start to grow in each uterus where life's already a battle [Music] there are multiple hungry sharks in each womb their only food eggs and their siblings older babies have an advantage their larger size helps them to overpower smaller siblings only one shark in each womb Will Survive it's a shark eat shark world even before birth females keep producing eggs to feed the largest embryo left in each womb but it's not just the embryo's size that gives it an advantage it's the most aggressive baby sand tigers that are more likely to be born that trait is passed down from the males who initiate mating by biting the female to hold her it's a violent affair [Music] and the females bear the scars the most aggressive males mate with the most females giving their offspring a genetic Advantage for success after a few months only one dominant baby shark remains in each womb like this one similar to human pregnancies you can see the baby shark moving inside mom's belly [Music] after 12 months she'll be born ready to expand her menu Beyond her siblings on the other side of the world it's November off the coast of Cape Cod at this time of year the Northwest Atlantic seems an unlikely Sanctuary for one little-known predator the poor beagle shark despite their impressive strength and speed poor beagles get much less attention than their cousins the great white and the Mako though pregnant poor beagles are here they're rarely seen and scientists are still unraveling their many Mysteries we're out here trying to catch the poor beagle shark which we also like to call the Phantom shark this is because not a lot of people have heard of or seen the poor beagle pretty difficult to catch and it's usually found in colder Waters PhD student here to study the movements of feel poor beagles as part of the research conducted by Dr James sulikowski they believe that the females stay in these cold Waters to give birth the question is why when other sharks migrate south by winter Wendy it's cold it's rough out right and this shark is living here in these Waters it's the only shark that stays here year round one of the unique things about the poor beagle shark is that it's endothermic and this means that it can actually keep its body temperature warmer than the water temperatures so we think that they might be using this spot while they're pregnant to reduce their competition and have these unique habitats that they can use that a lot of other species just they just can't handle basically then that chart's coming in we're going over it let it swim through it clip it up on the tail yeah yeah we can leader it so we need a poor beagle and when we get one we're going to satellite tag her and we're also going to see if she's pregnant that's one of the most important life history stages you have to study I mean they're the mobs they're the ones out there swimming with the Next Generation so where they go are areas that we need to know so we can protect them because they can thermoregulate poor beagles are able to use the entire water column in their search for prey from warmer water near the surface to much colder water at depths of over a four thousand feet large eyes help them to hunt in deeper darker water but this shark has caught the scent of the bait near the surface before we go we can see it right there in the water the thing just called the circle see it circling we can see the shark right here can the scientists catch this massive shark and bring it on board that's a nice poor beagle right there look at that every hook all right this is the key moment right now we got to get the shark to the boat poor beagles are big they're powerful sharks it's going to take everyone on board to land the shark safely all right do I be on this one here we go all right shark's coming on two tail ropes it's a big shark bringing 400 pounds of pure muscle on board isn't easy and the crew need to find Innovative and safe ways of holding on to it you ready all right here we go the most important things is to get water in the shark's mouth which we have which is great the scientists must work quickly to keep the shark healthy so what we're doing now is going to get some measurements shark is right now it's a mature animal this one's a mature male this is a first James and his team have never caught a male poor beagle in these Waters at this time of year they believed that males migrated elsewhere after the breeding season yeah I got the clipboard why is this shark here now so we're getting a blood sample so we'll measure this for Reproductive hormones testosterone for this species for this male to see what this levels are and if it's high we know that it's just made it you've got females in this area that are pregnant so it's an incredible area for this species it's what they need to survive the best way to study these elusive sharks is to track them with a satellite tag attached to their dorsal fin so the tags that we're using transmit a location every time this shark comes out of the water you get a signal of where that shark is in real time so what's interesting is that the past data that we have for females suggests they use this place year round so it's really interesting now to catch a mail to see what they're going to do do they leave do they stay with the females all really important when you talk about conservation and management and how these animals are using this area before they return the shark to the water they have one more measurement to take sorry anal temperature probe this is a homeothermic shark right so it maintains its body temperature warmer than the environment that's why it can live here while blue sharks and other species that aren't as good at it leave all right you can see that actually the temperature is going up right right now 74.5 degrees inside this shark and what we'll do is we'll compare that to what the water temperature is right now I can tell you it's about 20 degrees warmer inside the shark than it is outside that's absolutely incredible all right with measurements complete and the new satellite tag attached it's time to release this eight foot long male back into the sea one two three push here we go watch the tail here it goes wow do you see that swim away that was amazing that's incredible marine biologist real exciting landed a large porbeagle male which is incredible the shark was 250 centimeters long it's one of the biggest I've ever seen probably three four hundred pounds I mean it was a beast most of our work has focused on females right it's a really important sex they're the moms you know where do they go to give birth but when you catch a male male's a part of that equation you know where are they mating you know is it here and if so when so that's a really important part of our research and this is the first male we've ever Tagged so that Phantom so shark we finally got the mail so all the pieces are starting to come together but we still have such a long way to go is a rare opportunity to add to the data on this mysterious species but there is still a major piece missing to the Phantom shark puzzle this ultrasound reveals baby poor beagle sharks in utero for the very first time and only eight inches long where are they born to answer that the scientists will return next year the coast of Southeastern Australia is home to dozens of shark species but not all sharks are Mega predators in the nutrient-rich protected Waters of Jarvis Bay many smaller sharks and other creatures thrive like the Port Jackson shark it's also a nursery ground for a baby Port Jackson's poor Jackson sharks are found only in the southern half of Australia the adults migrate once a year from deeper colder water offshore to this secluded Bay to find a mate it's a Congregation of hundreds maybe thousands and recent studies reveal something extraordinary returning sharks seek out the same individuals year after year males in one group females in another establishing long-term relationships not documented in any other shark multiple males Vie for the attention of every female competition is fierce poor Jackson mating appears to be a rough affair most have developed thicker skin than males to withstand their sharp teeth males bite the female's fin holding her in place while he inserts one of his two claspers after mating they go their separate ways [Music] While most sharks give birth to live young poor Jacksons lay eggs to give unborn pups the best chance of survival this mother wriggles the egg free into a deep Rocky crevice where it's protected from predators her eggs are a unique cone-shaped spiral nearly five inches in length over the next few weeks she'll lay up to 16 eggs from multiple partners the corkscrew-like X will work their way deeper into the crevice and wedge between the rocks they'll stay there protected for the next 11 months this rare footage shows a five-month-old Port Jackson shark inside its egg even as an embryo she must be vigilant using Electro receptors she senses Predators close by and freezes even stopping her Gill movements to avoid detection but not all eggs are so lucky if an egg rolls into the open it's fair game this crested horn shark looks a lot like a Port Jackson they're close cousins but there is no familial love here on his menu is Port Jackson shark egg before this crested horn can break through the filament of the egg casing a male Port Jackson approaches it seems that help has arrived poor Jacks and sharks are larger than crested horns and this one has the advantage the crested horn isn't going to give up his meal that easily the Port Jackson has to step up he grabs the egg from the smaller shark but this was not a rescue mission the Port Jackson will keep this egg for himself just like a chicken egg the yellow yolk is dense with nutrients to feed the shark embryo an exposed egg represents a meal for anything that can break through the tough egg case nearly 90 percent of the eggs don't make it to hatching has survived those odds just a couple of days old and seven inches long she's not much bigger than some muscle shells she'll have to learn to feed herself quickly the jaws of an adult Port Jackson are filled with crushing molars and razor sharp teeth but the baby's teeth and Jaws are not fully developed yet so she sucks in worms and other soft-bodied animals to eat but she's not the only one out to find a meal predators are on the prowl and baby Port Jackson is on the menu this Fiddler Ray is on the hunt using electroreceptors in its snout called ampulay of lorenzini the race scans the sea floor for his next meal looking for shellfish crabs and even small fish like baby Port Jackson's just like inside the egg she freezes in an attempt to hide but this baby shark has another trick up her sleeve the coloring of her skin acts as camouflage mimicking dappled light on the Sandy Bottom and by avoiding detection she gets to Live Another Day it will be at least 11 years before this baby shark is sexually mature and able to join in the annual Port Jackson breeding season here in Jarvis Bay it's September nearly a year since the poor beagle scientists were in the icy waters of the Gulf of Maine Dr James sulakowski and his team are on a mission to catch a baby poor beagle shark some lines in the water hopefully catch us a baby poor beagle all right let's get those tags on let's get the tags on for the first time ever the research team is here to catch a baby poor beagle and fit it with a newly developed baby-sized satellite tag so we know that the baby poor beagle sharks are here in the Gulf of Maine but we don't exactly know why they're using this habitat so we've got a rod set at the surface we've got a rod set at about 50 feet and one set at about 100 feet we do this because we know based on our data that baby poor beagles use the whole water column so now no matter what depth that baby poor beagle is swimming at we have a good chance of catching it little baby poor because they're mysterious they like to nibble around the bait and sometimes it's gone so there you go it's gone little baby poor people nibbled around that that hook so we're gonna put some more bait on there and give it another try this Phantom shark appears to be living up to its name but their luck finally seems to change all right ladies gentlemen look at this okay all right here we go here we go he's got a good hook come on come on all right look at this beautiful shark okay okay calm down baby poor beagles or as we like to call them pork chops are some of the cutest sharks because they really look like miniature versions of the adults they're small but they're really chunky all right I need somebody on tail yeah all right all right I got tails get on his head all right this is a baby poor beagle thank God we have been searching for this little shark forever what a beautiful shark look at his color look at this great big blue eyes this shark is probably about two months old look at this little thing it's so cute this is a cute little shark this is what we're after come on little buddy at less than three feet from tip to tail she may be small but this baby shark is pure muscle and packs a heck of a punch the team keeps a firm grip on her for safety and so we're super excited right now this is the first time that we're putting this tag on this shark and so this could mean literally everything for the survival of this particular shark but also for the species if this is a nursery ground we have to know this in order to protect these areas Dr sulakowski is the first scientist to deploy a baby-sized satellite tag on a baby poor beagle tags we've used in the past to track movement were just too big for babies and so we needed to figure out a way in order to find where babies were going so we had to develop new technology and this new satellite tag is smaller it's lighter and it actually grows with that shark so it protects that fin it doesn't hurt the shark and we can really get some great movement on baby poor beagles [Music] [Applause] baby poor beagles share this area with commercial fishing boats and are sometimes caught by accident information on the baby's movements will help the scientists work with the fishing Community to avoid catching this vulnerable species right here we're not shark surfaces this will transmit to a location from a satellite that's that's passing above so we'll know exactly where that shark is at that time it's amazing it's real time real world information right now we're going to release this shark back to the ocean one two three a slime okay right here we go we're gonna place the shark in three oh yeah look at it go this baby shark is safely back in the water it's only a matter of time before she surfaces again and starts transmitting data back to the scientists oh my gosh yeah totally insane it's just so incredible to see it to see those big eyes to see that thick tail that fusiform body those dark coloration see it swimming so aggressively away it's just you know something that we as scientists it's like Christmas day it's unbelievable for us wow now the fun begins now we track this little shark we see where it goes we see what habitat it's using we see how it's interacting with the commercial fishing industry and we can see how we can get everybody working together to help this little shark survive yeah official efficient tagging the baby poor beagle with the newly developed satellite tag is a huge first for science and before the end of the day the team get their first ping look at that it's the day before we go we just released it's already surfacing and transmitting that's great news I mean that means that shark's alive it's coming to the surface and hopefully will give us a lot of data from here on out these are the first data points of many as this poor beagle grows in the waters around Cape Cod there's baby sharks here if this area is a nursery ground how are they using it and how does it connect back to Mom these are all major questions for us and if they are using this as a nursery ground then this is a really special place it'd be the first Nursery ground ever for this species which is incredible to think about the poor beagle is a shark shrouded in mystery but with more research being done scientists hope to have a better understanding of their place in the ocean starting right here in this potential Nursery ground in Australia baby sharks are being impacted by a changing ocean and scientists are on a mission to understand how they can survive in places like here off Heron Island on the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef a mix of tropical water and cooler water from the south make this one of the most productive places on the reef yeah and it's home to one of the world's strangest shark species the epaulette shark they are also one of the world's smallest sharks growing to only a few feet in length and the babies are even tinier only around six inches long like the Port Jackson shark epaulets lay eggs the females hide them under Coral heads to keep them safe from predators after only a few months the baby epaulette emerges ready for a life on the reef but it's not the size of epaulettes that makes them special from birth these sharks have an astounding ability they can walk the only family of shark that's able to do this while sharks have been in the ocean for over 400 million years epaulettes evolve this behavior only 9 million years ago making them the most recently evolved sharks in the world his round muscular fins act like feet to help him into the Titan nooks and crannies of the reef where he'll find food hide from predators and deploy an ingenious strategy when The Tide is High large five foot long white tip reef sharks dominate The Reef but when the tide is low the white tip is too big to maneuver here it's a situation that epaulettes use to their advantage [Music] the fierce tides on Heron Island pull water off the reef at an alarming rate leaving a shallow landscape of Trapped water most fish move to deeper water off the reef as the tide goes out or risk being stranded the epaulette exploits this extreme tidal change to hunt when the competition is locked out but as the time continues to recede the epaulette faces a challenge these isolated tide pools are low in oxygen making it difficult for most fish to breathe but the epaulette has another unique ability he can survive out of water he slows his breathing and heart rate and shuts off parts of his brain now he can live for up to an hour without any Oxygen before reconnecting with the sea epaulettes are the only shark that can do this it's an adaptation that has helped them thrive in places like this where the reef experiences dramatic changes in short periods of time while epaulette sharks have mastered the ability to cope with extreme changes in oxygen levels how they react to extremes in temperature is unknown I see a tail holy cow oh nice so camouflaged all right let's get this one yep got him and we go one little one nice work PhD student Carolyn wheeler and Dr Jody rummer from James Cook University are here to study the temperature tolerance of epaulette sharks and what it could mean for their future in a warming climate when the low tides coincide with the afternoon times like that it gets really warm on the reflat there's not a lot of water and it heats up really quickly so the sharks have to be really tough to be able to handle these kind of short temperature windows in the afternoon on the reflat here let's catch a number of sharks of different ages which they can tell by their size and weight second then they measure the water temperature where they find the sharks water that's too warm will stress the sharks there are two life history stages that are particularly vulnerable the first is early life history so when the sharks are developing in their egg case so when they're embryos and soon after a hatching and the second vulnerable life stage is reproducing adults they're putting a lot of energy into creating the precursors of eggs and so this also is a very vulnerable stage unlike baby Port Jackson sharks which take 11 months to incubate in their Corkscrew X baby epaulettes spend only four months growing inside their eggs before they hatch just four months from a tiny wriggling worm-like creature this mini shark it's one of the shortest incubation periods of any shark species but as water temperatures rise babies that are heat stressed consume their yolk sacks more quickly and they hatch almost a month earlier than average [Music] when the baby sharks are born earlier they're weaker than normal and unable to perform normal functions as well such as learning to walk and hunting for food and the temperature is quite High yeah what is the temperature it's 26.6 degrees Celsius which is about 78 degrees Fahrenheit reflats like this one can vary drastically with each changing tide a low tide in the middle of the day can be up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a high tide in the early morning or at night it takes a lot of energy to grow from a tiny embryo into a baby shark [Music] so any additional stress can be a big problem we're really trying to understand how challenging environmental conditions are costing epileptic sharks more energy to live so we are using this species epaulette shark as an indicator species because they're so tough if we find thresholds or trigger points that are challenging for them that is a very good early warning system for us for the health of the reef not just the Great Barrier Reef but reefs in general around the world in a changing climate sharks are still key to the health of the ocean beginning with baby sharks [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 47,749

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, How Baby Sharks Navigate the World, Top Predators, Baby Sharks, Growing up Fast, Witness the Vulnerable side to the Top Predators, Learn to Navigate a Dangerous World, Witnessing the Vulnerable side, Navigating the World, Baby Sharks are Cute, Dangerous World, Learn to Navigate

Id: 8pPVGJNxezk

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023