{"id":627,"date":"2016-06-24T16:41:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T21:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/?p=627"},"modified":"2016-06-24T16:41:12","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T21:41:12","slug":"sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/2016\/sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"black-tipped<\/a>

A better look at a black-tipped shark. Photo courtesy of crazygallery.info.<\/p><\/div>\n

The snorkeling in the lagoon here is good in places \u2013 many varieties of coral, a marvelous mix of brightly colored and oddly shaped fish, clams, crabs, eels. And sharks. Predominantly black-tipped sharks, but also gray sharks and at least one other species as well. Thus far I\u2019ve seen only black-tipped, the largest being about four feet long and the smallest being foot-long babies swimming in the rivulets that connect the outer reef with the lagoon.<\/p>\n

One book described black-tipped sharks as \u201cusually not aggressive.\u201d Usually<\/i>?<\/strong> And Jess, a local cruiser and diver with much shark experience, explained that black-tipped sharks aren\u2019t aggressive but what with last year\u2019s powerful El Ni\u00f1o having warmed the water and diminished the local food supply, they \u201cmight be a little hungrier than usual these days.\u201d They seem to hang out in groups \u2013 if you see one, look around a bit and you\u2019ll likely see a few others as well. And when you step into one of the rivulets, the baby sharks, shy though they reportedly are, rush over to see what all the commotion is.<\/p>\n

Hmmm. Gives a person, at least this person, pause. I\u2019ve done a bit of snorkeling here but find that seeing sharks, even 3- and 4-footers that usually aren\u2019t aggressive, in the water with me makes me nervous enough that I\u2019m not able to enjoy the coral and reef fish. My fear is strong enough to get me out of the water straightaway and leave me with not the slightest interest in working to overcome it. If that makes me a weenie, oh well, then I\u2019m a weenie.<\/p>\n

\"black-tipped<\/a>

Another good portrait of a black-tip. Photo copyright Mary O’Malley.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The snorkeling in the lagoon here is good in places \u2013 many varieties of coral, a marvelous mix of brightly colored and oddly shaped fish, clams, crabs, eels. And sharks. Predominantly black-tipped sharks, but also gray sharks and at least one other species as well. Thus far I\u2019ve seen only black-tipped, the largest being about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/witanco.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}