To maintain either aquatic or marine ecosystems, sharks are considered as the most important creatures in this regard, but most of the sharks of Tampa Bay exhibit migration patterns. But the question here arises why sharks in Tampa Bay moved to other localities? Let’s shed a light on the living strategies of the sharks in Tampa bay.
Is Tampa Bay infested with Sharks?
Tampa Bay is a sight for shark’s brats, as the number of visitors and the temperature increases up to the limit sharks usually dwell the bay, but during the season of summer and spring, the bays become a nursery and is a feeding cafe for the larger predators. Thus sharks in this area can help in determining the change in climate as well as the development of coastal areas.
However, the changes in the habitat such as filling of wet-lands, exclusion of mangroves, and increase in the temperature of the ocean water also had a great impact on the young sharks as their growth rate may decrease resulting in the decline of their survival rate.
Most Common Sharks found in Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay is filled with many species of sharks; among them most common sharks are blacktip, great hammerhead, bull shark, lemon shark, nurse shark, bonnet-head shark and tiger sharks.
1: Blacktip Shark
You can find black tip sharks in the coastal waters of the bays, ocean and estuaries. They are usually 6 feet in length. Due to overfishing and destruction of the natural aquatic habitat, these shark species are about to go extinct.
2: Great hammerhead Shark
Hammer-head sharks are considered as one of the largest species of the sharks, they are about 20 feet long. You can locate these sharks in the ocean shores of South Florida but they can easily make their way towards the bays.
3: Bull Shark
Bull sharks are considered the most aggressive species of sharks in the world and reported as the massive number of attacks. Knowing about the details of these species, they are from 7 to 11 feet in length and are found living in the highly populated area of the tropical oceans.
4: Lemon Shark
These species of sharks loved to swim and float in shallow water and enjoy their ride more likely in gulf and bay water. Their average length is from 4 to 7 feet and due to their small size they can swim with high speed. These are also considered as calm sharks but they become highly aggressive when provoked.
5: Nurse Shark
Nurse shark is also named as cat fish because it does look like a cat and loves to spend most of their time in the warm and shallow ocean shores. While talking about the size of them, they are usually of small size ranges from 7 to 9 feet in length. As they are very small creatures, they are very slow moving sharks and are non-aggressive towards other aquatic animals but are harmless to humans as well.
6: Bonnethead SharkÂ
Bonnet-head sharks are similar to hammer-head species but the size of these sharks usually ranges from 3 to 4 feet in length. As hammerhead sharks are the most aggressive sharks, bonnet sharks are non-aggressive and are completely harmless to humans. Because of their shovel shaped head, these sharks enjoy swimming in the shallow water and loved to spend their riding time in the bays and estuaries.
7: Tiger Shark
These species of sharks are called tiger sharks because of the presence of vertical dark coloured stripes on the adolescents and as the sharks grow older, these stripes start fading. Talking about their behaviour, these sharks possessed extreme aggressive behaviour and are reported to be man eaters as well. The size of these sharks lies between 10 to 14 feet and they spend most of their time while swimming in the subtropical oceans.
Bottom line
Tampa Bay has no doubt a dozen of sharks but due to the change in the climatic condition most of them migrated to other localities and when the conditions became suitable for them, they moved back to bay shores. I hope that the above mentioned data will provide enough knowledge about the sharks of Tampa bay and their mode of living.
