Crystal Beach, TX—When nine-year-old Reese Dearing noticed something floating in the water at the Sandy Shores edition at Crystal Beach, TX. he thought it was a small clump of sargassum (seaweed).
He simply followed childhood curiosity and picked it up.
What he found however blew his mind and this wildlife journalist’s as well.
Instead of seaweed, it was a tiny seahorse, an adult dwarf seahorse to be exact, a creature he (and I) have never seen alive in the wild.
He brought the tiny creature up to show his parents who quickly shot these photos and video clips and put the intricate little creature back into the sandy green waters of the Gulf to live a full life.
I learned of the discovery gassing up for a shark fishing trip as his mother Dana proudly showed me the images. Reese beamed with pride at his unique discovery.
This event reminded me of times spent beach combing with my parents searching out shells and sand dollars.
There was something beautiful about those times and there is something beautiful about Reese’s discovery.
For his entire life he will now view the Gulf of Mexico as a place of possibilities. Not only does he now know it is full of common Texas beach finds like hardhead catfish, jellyfish and crabs. But now he nows he most iconic small ocean creature-the seahorse-also dwells there.
I hope it instills in him a deep appreciation for the grand work God did in the Gulf. Seeing the whole family light up when relating the story further strengthened my resolve to write about what I call the “forgotten sea”.
The Gulf of Mexico and all of its wonders get little attention from the corporate wildlife media but encounters like this can do what dozens of television programs cannot.
I appreciate Dana and her husband Brent for allowing me to share these images with you and I especially appreciate Reese being curious enough to explore what he found at the beach.
That’s how a lifelong love and appreciation of the ocean and its inhabitants is born.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page. To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com.)
Well, it’s not the shark I have a problem with. It is how the corporate wildlife media has covered it in recent years that irks me.
Numerous most dangerous shark lists and television programs have named the bull shark as the top aquatic terror.
Yes, bull sharks are high on the International Shark File (ISAF) attack list with 73 nonfatal and 27 fatal attacks. Yes, they have extremely high levels of testosterone. And yes, they can be found commonly on popular beaches and even far into river systems as they do just fine in fresh water.
Bull Shark (Photo Courtesy NOAA)
It is the combination of those factors that put the bull shark high on the dangerous list but that is not what the public hears.
They hear “most dangerous shark” and assume that if a tiger shark, a great white and a bull shark swims by them, the bull shark would be the most likely to attack.
Well, for starters that is not even true in terms of just raw attack numbers.
The tiger shark’s nonfatal attacks are at 80 and they have 31 fatal attacks (total 111). The great white has 234 nonfatal attacks and 80 fatal attacks with a total 314. Just looking at these numbers alone you can see the bull shark is not the most dangerous shark.
Then you consider the logic of putting the bull shark at the top (its abundance in nearshore coastal waters, wide distribution, freshwater ability) actually paints a different picture when turned around.
Bull sharks are far more abundant than great whites and tiger sharks. Far more!
There is no comparison in their abundance especially in populated areas with great whites in particular having a limited range in warmer waters with more swimmers.
Looking at these numbers does anyone think that a shark (great white) that has 314 “verified” attacks and that has its largest abundance in relatively isolated areas in comparison to bulls would not do far more attacking if the population roles were reversed? Ditto for tigers.
I have no doubt there would be double the attacks for both species if they were as abundant as bulls on the Gulf, Atlantic and Caribbean Coasts.
I put “verified” in quotes because of something ISAF has said themselves.
This list must be used with caution because attacks involving easily identified species, such as white, tiger, sandtiger, hammerhead and nurse sharks, nearly always identify the attacking species, while cases involving difficult to identify species, such as requiem sharks of the genus Carcharhinus, seldom correctly identify the attacker.
The requiem sharks include the bull shark.
I have written recently that blacktip sharks could likely be the culprit for some bull sharks and current data shows them only behind great white, bull and tiger in total attacks.
ISAF has a category for requiem and lamniforems-attacks linked to those branches but not to exact species and those are both higher than the blacktip. But when it comes to identified sharks biting people blacktips rank fourth.
Period.
This is not to implicate the blacktip as a creature to be feared. It is however to question some of the shark attacks identified as bull. People have a very hard time identifying sharks.
I am constantly getting emails, social media tags and text messages asking me to identify sharks and most of the time they are a bull shark someone thinks is a blacktip or a blacktip someone thinks is a bull shark. I know this is only anecdotal evidence but in my opinion it speaks volumes.
The photo you see below is the one I use the top of this site. It is a large blacktip shark I caught and released near Venice, La. in 2012. Numerous people have commented on it being a bull shark.
Spinner sharks are nearly identical to blacktips and bull sharks and big blacktips can appear similar especially in murky water. Could spinners even be responsible for some alleged bull shark attacks?
I reiterate the public hears or sees “most dangerous shark” and assume that if a tiger shark, a great white and a bull shark swam by the bull shark would be the most likely to attack.
That is just not true. At best it is up to debate.
I am not trying to say the bull shark is a sweetheart. I was circled by one twice while wade fishing the Chandeleur Islands in 1997 and had to make my way to shore. I have also tagged and released a number of these amazing creatures up to six feet long. I have bull shark experience.
I also have great white, blacktip and spinner experience and while I have never dealt with tiger sharks all I really need is statistics to make this case anyway.
The reason for this article is not to make the great white or tiger shark look bad. I don’t want any shark to look bad!
It is to make us reexamine the bull shark.
For an intense podcast on this topic click the link below.
They are a very commonly caught shark in the sport fishery and while the fishing community does wonderful conservation work and there is a growing ethic toward catch and release of all sharks, not everyone has gotten the memo.
An uninformed angler who has just seen a program on the “most dangerous shark”and happens to catch an eight footer on a busy beach or in a bay commonly used by wade fishermen and snorkelers might think he or she is doing the public a favor by killing the shark.
Hopefully many anglers will see this article and then can make an informed decision on what to do.
In reality, killing more bull sharks does the ecosystem a disservice by taking out one of its apex predators.
There are no “bad” sharks. There are just sharks.
Sometimes they hurt people and we have to find creative ways to make shark attacks even less common. I love sharks but people come first. I get that.
It’s interesting that many believe the New Jersey attacks that inspired “Jaws” were actually committed by bull sharks. We will never know for sure but now roles have been reversed and the bull shark has been declared public enemy #1.
And it simply does not deserve that title.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page. To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com.)
That’s what it feels like during the summer when Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) officials run longlines in the nearshore Gulf to tag and monitor sharks.
Today TPWD’s Derek York messaged me from offshore with these clips and photos showing an eight foot long, 383-pound male bull shark caught, tagged and release 30 miles west of the Sabine Jetties. That’s somewhere along the Bolivar Peninsula.
The huge bull shark is sitting calmly (at least by bull shark standards) on a specially designed platform on the TPWD vessel. (Photo courtesy Derek York/TPWD)That’s a big bull shark folks! (Photo courtesy Derek York/TPWD)
Sharks are an extremely important part of the Gulf ecosystem and many species have suffered major declines due to overfishing from commercial longliners as well as some pressure from the recreational fishery.
Work like TPWD is doing this summer with their tagging will help gain a better understanding of sharks in Texas waters and give them a better idea on how to manage these predators. Shark regulations have changed several times in recent years as new research has come to light.
In the past some have questioned the wisdom of releasing big sharks like this but the fact is they are always at the beach during peak tourist season and there are very few attacks-even from the notorious bull shark.
I am in fact preparing a defense of the bull shark article coming later this week. These photos and the video attached inspired me to speak up for a species that gets little love.
I salute York and all of the TPWD crew out working hard to monitor our shark fishery and I think it’s kind of cool this big boy was caught right in the middle of Shark Week.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page. To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com.)
Virtually everyone with an interest in sharks knows the reputation of the bull shark.
Some sources list it as the most dangerous shark on the planet but this wildlife journalist believes that has a lot more to do with abundance around swimmers and fishermen and not all to do with attitude.
While filming a television program in 2002 in the Chandeleur Islands off the coast of Biloxi, Miss. I caught a five footer. This was part of a taping for television host Keith Warren’s fishing program.
I thought it would be best if we first photographed the shark from the shore (for a magazine story I as working on), so I hopped overboard waded to the bank with the fish still battling and brought it in.
The author reeling in the bull shark described in this story in the beautiful Chandeleur Islands in the Gulf of Mexico in 2002.
We filmed the whole thing and then talked a bit about bull sharks and shark conservation.
“Sharks like the bull shark are potentially dangerous to man, but they play a valuable role in nature,” I said.
“Sharks are the apex predator in the Gulf of Mexico, and without them, the entire food chain would be disrupted. I occasionally take sharks to eat, but bulls have super thick hide and I think I will release this one to fight another day.”
At this point, Keith and I walked the big shark back out into the water and he demonstrated the proper technique for reviving a fish by pushing water through its gills. The fish seemed worn out but quickly gained its strength. Keith pushed it out toward the deep, and on camera, we said something about a job well done and started to walk back to shore.
Then something caught my eye: The shark we had released had swam out about 20 yards and then turned around toward us. We were in water over our knees a good 30 yards from the bank. There was no way we were going to outrun the shark, so I prepared to kick it the best I could.
As it got about 10 feet from us, it turned sideways for a second as if it shows its authority, and then turned the other direction. We both breathed a sigh of relief and were glad the camera was still running, because we did not think anyone would believe us. We said something about a close call and wrapped up the shoot.
If you think that was a bit ironic, then check out what happened while tagging sharks near Sabine Pass, TX.
I was out with my friends Bill Killian and Clint Starling. We set up near a rig 10 miles south of the jetties and started catching sharks immediately. A few were blacktips and spinners but most were Atlantic sharpnose, sharks, a species often called “sand shark” that grows to a maximum of around four feet in length.
A huge crew boat that services the oil rigs has the entire Gulf to go around but runs full blast about 50 yards out and throws a massive wave. Our boat near capsized and everything in it went flying including the three-foot Atlantic sharpnose I was in the process of tagging.
When we landed back into position the shark fell on my leg and took hold of my calf. A shark does this thing where it grabs with a bite and then takes a hunk. Luckily before it took, a hunk I knocked it back and looked down to see lots of blood.
Bill and Clint were freaking out but I assured them it would be alright. I asked Bill if he had any alcohol or peroxide and he did not.
I looked down and saw a can of Dr. Pepper so I poured that on the wound, figuring it couldn’t hurt, pulled the bandana off my head and contained the bleeding. Bill was wanting to run it but the fish were still biting. We stayed another couple of hours and caught a whole bunch of sharks.
The shark left me a perfect shark jaw scar and a reminder that sometimes even the creatures you are trying to help are wild and free to prey on us if they so choose.
I never got stitches and to this day (this was 1999) have an obvious scar but that encounter only fueled my interests in sharks that continues to this day.
With “Shark Week” about to kick off, I thought it was timely to send out a post to give you some information you have to dig really deep to find.
I commend Discovery for their amazing shark coverage but you can only do so much on television in a week. The following information ranges from the esoteric to the criminally underreported.
Horse Vs. Shark
Sounds like a Syfy Original doesn’t it?
In reality I am talking statistics and according to the Centers for Disease Control sharks kill about one person in the United States annually. Horses kill around 20.
That won’t grab too many headlines because too many media figures and wealthy, influential people have horses but it is a fact.
Sharks are easy to sensationalize but in reality Mr. Ed’s kind has killed far more people than “Jaws”and its family in the United States.
Sashimi Specialist
Raw salmon with a splash of soy sauce and a bit of wasabi is one of my favorite food items. Raw salmon is also a favorite of a virtually unknown close cousin of the great white shark-the aptly named salmon shark.
Salmon shark fitted with a tag. Photo courtesy National Marine Fisheries Service.
This shark dwells the waters of the northern Pacific and is a fairly common catch on Alaskan fishing vessels.
Ferocious fighters and fast swimmers, the salmon shark is a close cousin to the great white shark. The salmon shark, Lamna ditropis, belongs family Lamnidae with four other species: the great white shark, the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, and the salmon shark’s Atlantic counterpart, the porbeagle (or mackerel) shark.
Salmon sharks (Lamna ditropis) are large, powerful, warm-bodied (endothermic), and streamlined predators adapted for high-speed swimming. Reports from the U.S. Navy have clocked salmon sharks exceeding 50 knots.
This would make the salmon shark one of the fastest fish in the ocean. They are reported to reach 11.9 feet (3.6 m) in total length (Eschmeyer et al. 1983, Compagno 1984). Most of the salmon sharks encountered in Alaskan waters (the northeastern Pacific) are surprisingly uniform: over 93% are females ranging from 6 1/2 to 8 feet (2 – 2.5 m) in length and roughly 300 pounds (136 kg). Salmon sharks in the 700 pound range have been reported by sport fishermen in Alaska.
These sharks are fascinating creatures that rarely come across swimmers or divers and strike fear only into the hearts of sockeye and chinook.
Underrated Biter
The common blacktip shark is never listed in Internet and television lists of the most dangerous sharks.
Yet as we reported in recent weeks if you look at the raw numbers from the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), you will see they should be.
While blacktips were only positively identified in one unprovoked fatality they were responsible for 29 total attacks.
The author with a huge blacktip shark caught and released off the coast of Venice, La.
That puts only the great white, tiger and bull-the three species everyone recognizes as potentially dangerous above them. We wrote about this last year here but have some new insight.
ISAF has a category for requiem and lamniforems-attacks linked to those branches but not to exact species and those are both higher than the blacktip. But when it comes to identified sharks biting people blacktips rank fourth.
Period.
This is not to implicate the blacktip as a creature to be feared. It is however to question some of the shark attacks identified as bull and to lesser extent spinner sharks (which have 16 attacks attribute to them.)
Spinner sharks are nearly identical to blacktips and bull sharks and big blacktips can appear similar especially in murky water.
It’s an interesting thing to consider as millions of beachcombers, wade fishermen and divers hit coastal waters.
That’s it for now. Expect much more to come on sharks over the coming two weeks.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com. To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page.)
You might be asking “Hey Chester, what is the corporate wildlife media?
It is media outlets owned by publicly traded corporations.
It is the large wildlife nonprofits who by virtue of their budgets and staffing have created a bottleneck in wildlife related information.
It is the large wildlife websites and programs interested in sensationalism instead of stories to initiate clickthroughs.
(Public Domain Photo)
So, how have they failed?
Let’s start with the Asiatic elephant problem.
Currently there are an estimated 400,000 African elephants throughout the continent. That’s a huge drop from at least two million in the 1940s but it is large in comparison to the Asian elephant with a best estimate standing at around 35,000 animals scattered throughout Asia. Think about that.
There are less 1/10 Asian elephants in comparison to African.
Why is little said about Asian elephants?
For starters, big conservation is big bureaucracy and the public’s fascination with the African elephant helps generate funding. Lots of it. The largest threat to Asia’s elephant has been habitat loss with poaching also a factor but showing African elephant carcasses stripped of tusks raises funds.
Showing palm oil plantations and villages taking up space for Asian elephants not so much.
In the April 24th entry I quoted a story that came out of Myanmar showing there is a growing market for Asiatic elephant skins and now bulls, cows and babies are being slaughtered.
Just before making this very post I did a google search for “elephant poaching”.
I finally found a story FIVE pages back on the Myanmar situation with every other story dating back several years in the NEWS section about African elephant poaching.
If Japanese whaling vessels start pounding on humpbacks the fundraising nonprofits will send out their letters and the social media will be abuzz.
But the vaquita is likely about to be extinct and you see almost nothing on it.
Why?
Harpooned whales and blood-stained seas raise funds and generate web traffic. They don’t think small propoises no one has heard about tangled in nets will do the same.
Slaughtered whales are more sensational than netted porpoises. (Public Domain Photo)
I think it would.
I think you and the wildlife loving public are smarter than that but in my opinion the gatekeepers in much of the corporate wildlife media think you’re not.
They think you need sensationalism when I think you need real stories.
That is what I try to do here.
I probably fail as well since this is a one man operation and things slip under the radar but I do put my heart and soul out there and say things I promise gain me no political favor on any side of the conservation aisle.
If you love wildlife and believe in conserving it do your best to stay tuned to independent researchers, small conservation groups and bloggers like myself in addition to the big outlets.
Not everything they do is bad but they miss way too much. And sometimes its on purpose.
It’s time all species in danger of extinction get attention, not just the chosen ones.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com. To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page.)
The most beautiful creature I have ever seen in the wild is a pink dolphin. In fact it is the very pink dolphin you see in the photo below that I took on Louisiana’s Lake Calcasieu (Big Lake) in 2010.
Photo by Chester Moore, Jr.
This dolphin is nicknamed “Pinky” and I have been blessed to see it on three separate occasions and it had it swim fairly close to our boat while drifting in the channel near Cameron, La. in 2013. You can see that video clip below.
In my opinion anomalies like this are important because they raise awareness to issues in nature and in this case the presence and importance of marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to Heidi Whitehead with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, this partitcular dolphin has been observed for more than a decade.
We initially began receiving reports of the “pink” bottlenose in Calcasieu in 2007 and we worked with NOAA to educate people and reduce vessel traffic around the animal for the protection of the animal because there were so many wanting to get out to see it. There was also a pink dolphin observed in the Houston ship channel near Bolivar several years ago but it has not been confirmed whether or not this was a different animal than the Calcasieu one as we have seen evidence from our photo-ID work that dolphins travel between Galveston and Louisiana.
Whitehead provided us with a fact sheet from NOAA on pink and white albino dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico and it contains some truly interesting information.
While there have been many documented sightings of albino, “white” or “pink” bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico; it is believed these sightings are of the same three individuals. The first was reported during the summer of 1994 in Little Lake near New Orleans, Louisiana. The all-white dolphin was spotted in a group of 4-5 individuals for 20 to 30 minutes and never seen again. In September 2003, another all white dolphin calf was first observed in a group of more than 40 dolphins south of Galveston, Texas. It was re-sighted several times in the same vicinity through August 2004 (Fertl et al., 1999; Fertl et al., 2004).
This is what NOAA has to say about “Pinky” from the Lake Calcasieu area.
Although the dolphin is often referred to as a “pink” dolphin because of its pink coloration, it is considered an albino. The dolphin’s mother is not albino and has the gray coloring typical of coastal bottlenose dolphins. Dolphin calves are typically born dark gray in color. All sightings of this dolphin have been off Louisiana and most of the time it was seen swimming with a group.
According to NOAA there have been “white” dolphin sightings along the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Other “white” dolphins have been sighted in the Southeast U.S. between 2012-2014, these include off the coast of South Carolina, NE Florida and Georgia, and in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida
If you see a pink or white dolphin call the Southeast US Marine Mammal Stranding Network at 1-877-433-8299. They are interested in getting information on these unique animals.
And so am I.
If you have photos or videos please send them along with photo credits and dates/timeline if possible.
I am working on a special project for kids regarding these colorful enigmatic marine mammals and would appreciate your help.
In response to an earlier entry here at The Wildlife Journalist® another report came in-this time from Florida.
Last year in August (2017) we were on a family vacation. We went down to the beach and got I’m in the water and not two minutes later my 11-year-old started yelling snake. I still couldn’t see it. So he pointed at it and followed it out the water. It went down the beach 20 or 30 yards and back in the water. It was only a baby but definitely a banded sea krait. I have watched many nature shows with this snake on it. This was at Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla. We will be there again this August and I will be keeping a look out for another one.
This location is on the Gulf Coast of Florida and is the first report we are aware of in the region.
Banded sea krait. Photo courtesy NOAA
In the first article on the subject we note there are eel species in the Gulf that could be mistaken for a sea snake, however the behavior mentioned in the report above does not match up with eel behavior.
Is it really possible that banded sea kraits entered the Gulf of Mexico through ship ballasts?
An article at thoughtco.com explains ballast systems purpose and how they work.
A ballast water system allows a ship to pump water in and out of very large tanks to compensate for a change in cargo load, shallow draft conditions, or weather.
The capacity of ballast water tanks might be millions of gallons on a large vessel. This allows vessels to carry a light or heavy load while maintaining ideal buoyancy and handling conditions in all situations.
More than 7,000 species move around in ship ballots daily according to officials with the World Wildlife Fund in an article in The Telegraph and while ships are supposed to change their ballast water in the open ocean to lessen the chance of invaders making it inland, this would have little impact on sea snakes. They could easily catch a ride on a mat of Sargassum and be just fine.
The Chinese Mitten crab has taken up residence in the Thames and other English river systems after being brought in by ballasts. It’s within the realm of possibility for sea snakes to hitch a ride into the Gulf.
An interesting side-note is the most likely sea snake hitchhiker would be the yellow-bellied sea snake as it is found along the Pacific Coast of Panama and is the most widely distributed species. All of the reports I have gathered are of banded sea kraits which live much further away from the United States.
Yellowbelly sea snake. Photo courtesy NOAA
We will talk more about this in another post and dig more into some other possible cases of mistaken identity besides the aforementioned eels.
If you have seen any sea snake in the Gulf of Mexico or had a sighting of something snake-like you cannot explain email chester@chestermoore.com.
This story is getting more interesting by the week and we will continue coverage here at The Wildlife Journalist®.
The common blacktip shark is never listed in Internet and television lists of the most dangerous sharks.
Yet if you look at the raw numbers from the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), you will see they should be.
While blacktips were only positively identified in one unprovoked fatality they were responsible for 29 total attacks.
That puts only the great white, tiger and bull-the three species everyone recognizes as potentially dangerous above them. We wrote about this last year here but have some new insight.
The blacktip shark can easily be confused with other species. (Photo courtesy NOAA)
ISAF has a category for requiem and lamniforems-attacks linked to thosebranches but not to exact species and those are both higher than the blacktip. But when it comes to identified sharks biting people blacktips rank fourth.
Period.
This is not to implicate the blacktip as a creature to be feared. It is however to question some of the shark attacks identified as bull and to lesser extent spinner sharks (which have 16 attacks attribute to them.)
Spinner sharks are nearly identical to blacktips and bull sharks and big blacktips can appear similar especially in murky water.
The identification issue is noted by ISAF.
This list must be used with caution because attacks involving easily identified species, such as white, tiger, sandtiger, hammerhead and nurse sharks, nearly always identify the attacking species, while cases involving difficult to identify species, such as requiem sharks of the genus Carcharhinus, seldom correctly identify the attacker.
Blacktips are the most common large shark to be found in the Gulf of Mexico. They are highly abundant along many beaches and probably come into contact with people more than any other large shark.
The author in 1999 with a blacktip shark he was about to tag with Mote Marine biologist John Tyminski.
While the bull shark is common and sort of jacked up on testosterone, blacktips are even more abundant and frequently prey on schools of mullet, menhaden, pompano and other fish on the beachfront.
In my opinion some of the “bull shark” attacks on fishermen in particular are probably blacktips. Wade fishermen routinely carry belts with fish stringers and I have personally witnessed numerous blacktips hitting stringers. I have seen bulls circle anglers and have heard of one attacking a stringer but blacktips are far more often the culprit here.
Bulls have a bad reputation so they might be getting a little more blame on some of the attacks that do not involve fatalities and outright brutal attacks.
An interesting note from ISAF is that blacktips have been known to attack surfers in Florida.
Is it possible they are experiencing the same kind of phenomenon great whites do in seal-rich waters of the Pacific but instead of pinnipeds they relate it to the silhouette of sea turtles?
Blacktip sharks are amazing creatures that have the respect of anglers due to their incredible acrobatics when hooked. Most anglers catch-and-release them these days respecting their role in the ecosystem.
Perhaps with this knowledge they might respect them a little more-and be a little more cautious when toting around a stringer of speckled trout or pompano in the surf.
It emerged from a weedline that covered the edges of the 18 Mile Light (Sabine Bank Lighthouse) out of Sabine Pass, TX on the Texas-Louisiana border.
“It had white/bluish and black bands and came from under the weeds and then swam to the surface. It was a sea snake and I have no doubts about what I saw,” said one angler I interviewed in person who wishes to remain anonymous.
The angler said the “snake” had a paddle-like tail and he and his fishing partner observed it for several minutes.
Banded Sea Krait (Photo courtesy NOAA Photo)
The problem is there are not supposed to be any sea snakes in Gulf waters. They dwell the Pacific although in the past there has been some banter about whether or not they would make it through the Panama Canal.
I got that report a couple of years back and then sort of filed in the “X” category for review later on down the road.
Then I spoke with someone who told me about catching a big diamondback rattlesnake near High Island, TX.. He said this as he brought me a king snake for my collection and we spent an hour talking about serpents. And just as he was done relating the story of the rattler, he dropped a bombshell.
“The craziest thing I ever saw was a banded sea krait at one of the rigs off of the Bolivar Peninsula,” he said.
He reported seeing the snake swimming around a rig that he had paddled his kayak to on a calm day.
A couple of things happened when I got this report. First, he called it a “banded sea krait” which is a specific type of sea snake. There are numerous species.
This is what two separate eyewitnesses reported seeing in close proximity in the Gulf of Mexico.
Then I realized this was only about 25 miles from where the other sighting came from which described a banded sea krait. These two individuals did not know each other and the reports were unsolicited. In other words there was no collusion.
Once again there are supposed to be no sea snakes in Texas.
A possible candidate for the sightings is the snake eel which is present in the Gulf of Mexico and has similar markings to a banded sea krait. They are established in the Gulf and would be a species found around an oil rig or a structure like the 18 Mile Light although I have never spoken with anyone who has ever reported seeing one and that includes divers-including myself.
Snake Eel (Photo courtesy NOAA)
There are several reports of beaded sea snake that allegedly washed up in Florida after a red tide event. There are also a few stories of sea snakes reportedly being found in different areas of the Caribbean.
Bloggers blame ship ballasts for carrying snakes from the Pacific and then unintentionally releasing them into the Gulf. It is unlikely but the fact is you just never know.
A recent video shows a snake that appears to be a sea snake in the Gulf of Maine-far from their range.
If you think you might have seen a sea snake in the Gulf of Mexico email me at chester@chestermoore.com. I would appreciate any accounts, photos or video.
Sea snakes are fascinating creatures and their presence in the Gulf although unlikely is not impossible.
Chester Moore, Jr.
(To contact Chester Moore e-mail chester@chestermoore.com. To subscribe to this blog enter your email address in the box on the top right of this page.)
