CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — Just 12 minutes had passed since the bait hit the water.

The tide flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, and each passing minute dropped the pontoon closer to Crystal River’s rocky bottom. Five chunks of ladyfish floated on hooks: Three on a handline, two on rod-and-reel.

A handline was hit first.

“Shark!” yelled Alyssa Andres, a postdoctoral fellow at Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory.

“That’s a shark!”

What happened next is best described as a blur.

In just six minutes, a team of four researchers brought the young female bull shark aboard, tagged her dorsal fin, weighed her (nearly 10 pounds), measured her (2 feet, 10½ inches), aged her (born within the past year) and took blood and muscle samples.

In a flash, the shark was kicking away from the boat and scientists cheered with whoops, high-fives and smiles.

This would be the first of five baby bull sharks caught and tagged on a recent scientific fishing trip in Crystal River, a spring-fed waterway that sprawls for 7 miles through Citrus County.

The river is known worldwide for the hundreds of manatees that gather each winter near the outflows of the river’s springs as they seek the warmth of water that is 72 degrees Fahrenheit. Could cold-sensitive bull sharks be doing the same? Are mother sharks relying on the temperate springs to birth and shield their young?

...continued

©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.