{"id":2412,"date":"2023-07-31T03:47:15","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T07:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2023-08-08T14:38:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T18:38:42","slug":"have-bigger-sharks-given-way-to-smaller-sharks-along-the-north-carolina-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/have-bigger-sharks-given-way-to-smaller-sharks-along-the-north-carolina-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"Have Bigger Sharks Given Way to Smaller Sharks Along the North Carolina Coast?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Over the last 50 years, many shark species have trended toward smaller-sized individuals around Cape Lookout.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharks are important predators in marine food webs, but their numbers are thought to have been significantly altered by fishing and other human impacts, potentially disrupting coastal ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many anglers note that small sharks currently appear quite abundant, but there are few rigorous analyses of trends in shark sizes over time, due to the relative rarity of long-term survey data on these highly migratory and hard-to-sample fishes. Therefore, we wanted to explore whether shark sizes along the North Carolina coast have changed over time, leveraging one of the longest-running shark surveys in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We examined the sizes of 12 shark species caught regularly during a nearly five-decade-long survey conducted in Onslow Bay, North Carolina, using standardized longline gear (200 baited hooks attached to a 1-mile main line, deployed biweekly). We evaluated trends for each species in average and maximum \u201cfork length\u201d (the distance from the snout to the fork in the tail).<\/p>\n\n\n\nResearch Need<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What did we study?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n