Simply judging the time it would take to thaw was the source of greatest error. "As we had to make preparations for the scanning, we had to freeze it to prevent deterioration. "The size and weight of the head was truly challenging," recalls Gomon.
In fact, requests for samples and data have already been pouring in from scientists around the world. What did it eat? Where did it live? How old was it? And where did it come from? Questions like that can finally be answered. The team managed to take the shark's entire 1,322-pound (600kg) head, all of its fins, and samples of the muscles, vertebrae and stomach contents – samples that can provide a map of this individual shark's life. But working with such a large specimen is not easy. " To the skipper’s great credit, he felt the specimen might be far more useful to science than as a food source for marine scavengers should he turf it back over the side."Įven bits and pieces of basking sharks taken in the Southern Hemisphere are rare in museum collections, so when the call came in, Gomon and his team rushed to the scene to take valuable measurements and samples. "T hese encounters can provide many of the missing pieces of knowledge that help broaden conservation," explains MV Senior Curator of Ichthyology, Dr Martin Gomon. Of course, we'd prefer to see the shark alive and well, but this is a great example of how successful collaboration between scientists and fishermen can make a real difference.