Let’s Talk About It… The Hound Shark
Found in False Bay waters through to Angola and the temperate waters of the East Atlantic, this shark doesn’t look anything like any hounds I know…they do not try to disguise themselves either, with their greyish – brown colouring, they can be found swimming at varying depths of between 16.5 and 1140 feet! (5 to 347 meters) Enjoying the ocean bed, they can sometimes be found at mid-water level too, so not surface feeders as we have with the Great White Shark. At a maximum of 3.6 feet (1.10 meters) in the males and 5.4 feet (1.65 meters) in the females, this fairly slender shark has a short head and snout. Really doesn’t look like a hound at all!
The females mature at a length of approximately 2.6 feet (approx. 80cm) and after a 10 to 11 month gestation period, will give birth to between 4 and 15 live pups of between 1 and 1.3 feet (30 and W15,75 in) in length.
Sharks find themselves prey too.
They enjoy a diet of crustaceans, cephalopods and bony fish, and as you can imagine not being the biggest of sharks out there, find themselves prey, not only to other larger fish and sharks, but to humans too. They are fished for fresh, smoked, frozen and dry salted meats for food and their liver is used for oil and fishmeal. They are also fished for sport and to be kept in aquariums.
This little guy is not an aggressive shark, and does not pose any threat to humans, and is currently still considered “common” so not threatened or on the endangered list, as yet. Can we keep it that way?
Want to meet a shark face to face?
If sharks are of interest to you and you would like to enjoy a “face to face” with the Apex predator of the oceans, the Great White Shark, then join us on one of our amazing Shark Cage Dives out of Simons Town, False Bay!
Till we meet again, keep that toothy grin!
By Nadine Bentley
