Fishermen deliver baby ‘bird sharks’

Fishermen in Taiwan delivered dozens of baby sharks after discovering two tiger sharks they pulled from their nets were pregnant, guancha.cn reported Thursday.



The men were fishing off the coast of Changbin township on Monday when they netted a 3.7 meter tiger shark, or "bird shark" as they're locally called (as they're known to prey on birds).



Realizing the 200-kilogram mother was carrying pups, fishermen quickly performed an emergency c-section and successfully delivered her entire litter of 38 big-eyed baby sharks.



They are now alive and well in the care of local marine biologists.



"[The sharks] have shown they're tough and began feeding on squid since Thursday afternoon," Ho Yuanshing, Eastern Marine Biology Research Center of Fisheries Research Institute, posted on Facebook.



The second delivery, however, was more complicated.



A second pregnant shark snared on Thursday morning underwent the same c-section proceedure. Out of the 37 pups, only 30 survived, guancha.cn reported.



"The pregnancy hadn't reached full term and the research institute is a distance away," Ho explained on Facebook.



The successful birth comes as welcome news to the worldwide tiger shark population, which is considered "near threatened" by the UK-based International Union for Conservation of Nature.



guancha.cn

