Lemon Drops

"Our" baby lemon sharks are growing big and strong. Must be all that fish we keep on cleaning around the pier!

Small sharks can be easily caught in gill nets. Such as the ones around our pier. Damien Chapman caught the seven baby lemon sharks that seem to have taken residency around Middle Caye to tag them and follow their progression as they grow.

Unfortunatly this is also one of the causes of decline of shark all over the world. Fishermen use gill nets around mangroves and seagrass, usually near the mouth of rivers, which are good shark nursing ground. Sharks pups are easily trapped and die in the net. The sharks are bycatch and have little value either as meat or for their fins at the sizes caught in those nets.

The same phenomenon exsits with drift nets, which are gill nets set in open water usually used by fisherment targetting Tuna or Marlins. Juvenile and adult sharks get caught in them and by the time the gill nets are checked they are usually dead, asphixiated. Again these sharks will be bycatch and have a low commercial value. The fins would probably be sold on the Asian market for soup, but little of the meat would be used.

We hope to see our little lemon drops for many more years around the waters of Glovers and help protect them and future generations.