A team of researchers has discovered a nursery of juvenile hammerhead sharks off an island in Ecuador’s Galapagos archipelago, a find that could help save the species from extinction. A so-called hammerhead juvenile sanctuary, which is less than a year old, was discovered near Isabela Island, the largest island of the Galapagos, and offers the sharks shelter during mating and early development stages.
“The discovery of these new breeding areas is very important, especially for the hammerhead shark,” park ranger Eduardo Espinoza said in a statement from Galapagos National Park on Friday. “It’s an iconic species for the Galapagos, but it’s critically endangered.” The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the hammerhead shark, a species found in the Galapagos Islands, to be “critically endangered”.
It is largely threatened by commercial fishing and the demand for their fins, which are used to make shark fin soup. Researchers have spent months scouring the archipelago for possible nursery sites as part of the hammerhead shark monitoring program. National park scientists have previously identified two other sites with similar features on nearby islands.
“We were able to include these nurseries in the list of important areas for the conservation of sharks, which is a new conservation category according to the IUCN,” said Espinoza. Researchers monitor nurseries to track the population of young sharks in nursery areas and track their migration patterns. The Galapagos Islands, with their unique wilderness, were decisive for British scientist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. It is home to many species that cannot be found elsewhere, such as giant tortoises, flightless cormorants and marine iguanas.
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