What is the average age of sharks

Experience these amazing wild creatures in the wild for yourself! Research around the life expectancy of sharks in captivity has found that they live shorter lives than sharks living in their natural habitat.

However, scientists still have a way of determining the age of sharks. Even so, the average life expectancy varies for each shark species. They found that sharks held in small tanks have a life expectancy of only nine years. Different shark species adapt to different water temperatures. But if, as now seems likely, they are slower growing and later to mature than was previously recognised, it means also that great whites would find it harder to recover their numbers if populations are depressed because of fishing, environmental and other pressures.

Ian Fergusson, a founding patron of the Shark Trust , commented: "White sharks have a fairly low fecundity in terms of litter size. Typically, females might have a handful of pups per litter, and we're not sure how often they even get pregnant in a lifetime.

The conservation of sharks is not like the conservation of trout in a river, and that's something people in the fisheries business don't always understand," he told BBC News.

Australia protests over shark 'cull'. Great whites 'not from megashark'. Wrong turn brought sharks to Med. Great white's marathon sea trek. BBC Cartilaginous fish. A NOAA remotely operated vehicle doing a dive off New England encountered a Greenland shark at a depth of meters , but these sharks are known to dive as deep as 2, meters. That means removing mature Greenland sharks from the ocean affects the species and the ecosystem for many decades.

Though the Greenland shark used to be hunted for its liver oil, the majority of Greenland sharks that end up in fishing nets and lines now are caught by accident.

Reducing bycatch is critical in conserving this unique species. After the great white shark, the tiger shark is probably one of the most feared sharks in the world. Although tiger sharks are responsible for the second highest amount of human fatalities, like all sharks they do not intentionally hurt people. Tiger sharks are also known for their tiger-like pattern, which fades as they get older. The life expectancy of tiger sharks is difficult to determine, but in the wild they can live up to 50 years.

Also like the the great white shark, tiger sharks are one of the largest species of shark in the world. They are also notable for their wide range of prey that includes crustaceans, fish, seals, birds, squid, turtles, sea snakes, dolphins, and even other smaller sharks. Additionally, tiger sharks have a reputation for consuming a large amount of human garbage. The school shark commonly called the tope shark, snapper shark, and soupfin shark when not threatened in the wild has a life expectancy of more than 55 years.

School sharks are migratory and are found in temperate waters around the world. Some tagged specimens have shown up over a thousand miles from their initial location. Unfortunately, school sharks are one of the most heavily exploited shark species in the world and they have been classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

School sharks are often used for its flesh, its fins, and its liver which has a high concentration of vitamin A. They are eaten around the world and their fins are dried and sold in Far East Asia. The porbeagle is a medium-sized species of mackerel shark, which is one of the most recognizable group of sharks that includes great white sharks, goblin sharks, and the megamouth shark.

Like other mackerel sharks, porbeagles are some of the oldest sharks and have a life expectancy between 30 — 65 years. Porbeagles are known for their playful behavior and may have been named after the porpoise and the beagle.

They are often sought after by hobby fishers because they tug strongly on fishing lines. Commercial fishers on the other hand, see porbeagles as a nuisance because they steal hooked fish from their lines and damage fishing gear intended for smaller fish.