@mermaid.kayleigh: Woo hoo! 🙌🏼 Today our scientific paper “Novel observations of an oceanic whitetip (Carcharhinus longimanus) and tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) scavenging event” was just released! This is the first paper I was able to coauthor & I am so grateful to have witnessed this & for the opportunity to contribute to science. On April 9, 2024, off the coast of Kailua-Kona, we observed oceanic whitetip sharks (OCS) & tiger sharks (TIG) peacefully scavenging together on a whale carcass! I spent around 8 hours this day documenting as much of this rare sighting as I could. We observed 9 oceanic white tips & 5 tiger sharks sharing this abundant feast. This rare encounter gives us a glimpse into the social & feeding behaviors of apex predators that don’t usually cross paths. It also shows how scavenging events can bring together different species, revealing how energy moves through the ocean’s food web. I took my hours of footage to Shark Tagger Hi & proposed a paper as this event is almost unheard of. I hope this paper is an inspiration to other underwater photographers, videographers, & guides that our time spent in & on the water observing as citizen scientists is vital for science & documentation! With so much time spent on the water you never know what each day will bring! Mahalo to Shark Tagger Hi for this opportunity & allowing @kaimanaoceansafari to contribute to your ID data base & support science. Mahalo @Olivia Miller, Molly Scott & Devon Stapleton for this skillfully written paper. Mahalo @camgrantphoto & @andrew for additional data & documentation of this captivating event. And huge mahalo to all of the other offshore community who was there observing that day with full respect to the wildlife! 🦈🤙🏼💙 #savesharks #deadwhale #sharks #tigershark #oceanicwhitetip #sharkbehavior #hawaii #tigersharks

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Friday 30 May 2025 02:52:02 GMT