Bull Shark

By Andrew Nees, Jordan Glover

The bull shark, or the Carcharhinus leucas is a species of fish. Unlike most fish, bull sharks and other shark skeletons are completely made of cartilage instead of having bones. Bull Sharks are average 7 to 8 feet long, and weigh from 200 to 300 pounds on average. Females are slightly larger than males. Bull Sharks have small snouts, no interdorsal ridge, and are grey on top and white on the bottom. Although bull sharks aren’t the largest sharks out there, they have the strongest bite force of any shark, at 1,330 pounds of force. They live an average of 12 years, and what makes bull sharks so special is their ability to survive in salt and fresh water.

Bull Sharks live in coastal areas in warm oceans. They also can be found in certain lakes or rivers. They can swim from the ocean up freshwater rivers and have been found in rivers like the Mississippi. Bull Sharks are also very important for the ecosystem. They moderate the amount of the species below them in the food chain, and help with diversity. They also are an indicator of how healthy an ocean is. The more bull sharks in a given area, the healthier and cleaner the area.

Bull Sharks are predators. They eat a very wide range of things including fish, smaller sharks, turtles, dolphins, and birds. Bull Sharks hunt alone most of the time, but can hunt in groups to make it easier to catch prey. Bull Sharks can regurgitate the food from their stomach to divert and escape predators. They also can slow down their digestion when they are unable to find food. This helps them survive longer when food is scarce.

Bull Sharks are considered ‘near threatened’. This means that bull sharks aren’t endangered or even close to being extinct. They are the next step down from the ‘least concern’ area on the spectrum, so they aren't completely thriving, but they aren’t dying off.

While bull sharks themselves don’t have much cultural significance, sharks in general are important to the culture of the Aboriginal people in Coastal Australia. Sharks represent the connection to land and sea, and serve as a religious symbol for these people, as they are viewed as powerful and worthy of respect.

In 2003, Erich Ritter was filming an episode for Shark Week in the Bahamas. His goal was to show how sharks were misunderstood and are not as aggressive as they seem. While he was filming the episode, he was attacked by a bull shark and lost almost all of his left calf. This attack was caught on camera, and many people have seen it. This story shows that even if sharks aren’t completely malicious, they still can be dangerous and should be respected.

Citations

“Bull Shark.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_shark.

http://www.mesa.edu.au/seaweek2005/pdf_senior/is08.pdf

Try our Bull Shark Fill In The Blank activity here.