Shark Week 2020 | 'Tiger Shark King': Depths of Bahaman trench are tiger sharks' mating grounds, opine experts
Two-hundred miles east of Florida in the center of the Islands of Bahama lies a fairly unexplored trench known as the Tongue of the Ocean which separates the islands of Andros and New Providence. It is a deep-sea labyrinth composed of hundreds of twisting canyons and ravines, possibly a treasure trove of ecosystems that even marine biologists with little knowledge about it are itching to research. The sheltered region is known to be home to a myriad of endemic deep-sea creatures, particularly cetaceans, including Cuvier's and Blainville's beaked whales. Marine Biologist Dr Austin Gallagher had previously placed tags on tiger sharks of the Caribbean, and with footage from earlier this year, he made a surprising discovery. Some 900 feet deep in the water basin, a 14 feet long female tiger shark is assaulted by a mysterious predator and Dr Gallagher intends to find out the identity of the culprit.
In Discovery Channel's 'Shark Week' 2020 special, 'Tiger Shark King', Dr Gallagher and his team embark on a deep-sea expedition in the unchartered waters of the Tongue of the Ocean that reaches over 6,000 feet in depth. They aim to uncover the mystery behind the assault on the tiger shark captured on camera. The trenches of the Bahamas are a place where strange creatures and dangerous predators have adapted to survive in deep dark isolation. In fact, it is so dark that the creatures living in the habitat have evolved to be bioluminescent where they emanate light from their bodies in order to survive. If one were to venture into the waters they would be diving into the abyss, an endless pit of darkness. Dr Gallagher's studies so far have shown that the bigger sharks roam the greater depths of the ocean, and his team, comprising shark expert, Jimi Partington, and deep-sea biologist, Christine D'Silva, take a submarine down nearly 1,000 feet to uncover some of its mysteries, including the predator that attacked the tiger shark.
The trenches are definitely a shark hotspot, for Partington scours the expanse in a shark cage, only to be surrounded by hundreds of sharks, including lemon sharks, silky sharks, bull sharks, tiger sharks, reef sharks, hammerheads and orca whales. Dr Ghallager and Partington each take a submarine down 1,000 feet towards the seafloor where they are met with gulper sharks and even come across the elusive blunt-nosed six-gill or cow sharks. This is an interesting find because cow sharks, descendants of the Jurassic era, can swim down to about 6,500 feet. As they wait in anticipation for their shark of interest to show, they realize the unexplored depths really have a lot to offer in terms of sea life. There are several species yet to be discovered and researched in marine biology.
The experts don't have to wait too long as they encounter a massive tiger shark that brushes against their submarines and swims away into the darkness. Gauging from the footage they collected from their expedition, Dr Gallagher concludes that sharks thrive in the darkness and tend to remain there for most of their time. The tiger shark that they saw at about 1,000 feet deep in the ocean was roughly some 17 feet long, according to Partington's estimate. It could have very well been the predator that was captured in the footage, slamming into the tagged female tiger shark. Dr Gallagher also thinks that the deep sea could be a mating ground for the tiger sharks, the largest of its kind. He has reasons to believe that the assault in the footage was probably foreplay because mating in tiger sharks tends to be really rough. Their expedition was just the tip of the iceberg into extensive research of the mysteries of the Tongue of the Ocean and the variety of shark species that call the habitat their home.
'Tiger Shark King' aired on Friday, August 14, at 10 pm only on Discovery Channel.