Requiem sharks are part of the class Chondrichthyes and the family Carcharhinidae, which has species of sharks that are widely known as being “man-eating”; including such sharks as the Great White Shark, Bull Shark, and Tiger Shark. According to one article “Sharks are top predators in many marine ecosystems and can impact community dynamics, yet many shark populations are undergoing sever declines primarily due to overfishing” (Afonso & Hazin, 2015).
Currently, technology is helping us to understand more about these previously unknown creatures. Companies like Ocearch are gathering knowledge by attaching tags to Tiger and Great White Sharks to learn about feeding habits, breeding habits, and territories of juvenile vs adult sharks. Ocearch’s famous tagged shark is a female Great White named Katharine. Katherine was caught as a juvenile in 2013 off the Cape Cod coastline. She has built up a large fan base via social media outlets and is serving as an ambassador alongside Mary Lee, another tagged Great White. Recently they watched as Katherine started to ping further and further away from the East Coast, showing us that she was reaching sexual maturity by seeking out deeper water.
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With these advances we can start to understand the ways of these once feared animals. As a teenager, I wanted to join my grandfather in the commercial fishing trade. On the Outer Banks, it is not just a way of life but a growing right from child to adulthood. One day, we were pulling nets that we had laid near an old shipwreck. Hand over hand we pulled 10,000 feet of net. Each pull I was always eager to see what lay next in the net, like a treasure hunt. After the first 50 feet, we started pulling up juvenile Bull Sharks. Growing up on the bay, I had heard stories of sharks that swam there, but never having witnessed it myself, I was