Oregon researchers find first-ever evidence of attack on ‘phantom’ shark

PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — Similar to a game of Clue, researchers at Oregon State University are trying to uncover the culprit behind the death of an endangered shark.

This started after a team of researchers at OSU wanted to learn more about porbeagle sharks, also known as “phantom” sharks, which are endangered in the North Atlantic Ocean, except the United States where the animal is listed as a species of concern.

The scientists wanted to learn how to protect porbeagles, especially pregnant porbeagles, by tracking their preferred habitats. Instead, researchers became caught up in a porbeagle mystery.

“Little did we know that a big shark, like a porbeagle – a fast-moving shark – was food for something bigger,” Dr. James Sulikowski, the director of OSU’s Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station , told KOIN 6 News.

The study began in the cold and rough waters of New England in 2020, where researchers from OSU, Arizona State University, and Rhode Island’s Atlantic Shark Institute, had to catch the porbeagle sharks, which can grow eight to 10 feet.

“When we catch the shark, we have to see if it’s pregnant. So, we have an ultrasound, we can scan it to see if she has babies and if she’s pregnant, then we tag her and we track her,” Sulikowski explained.

The team used two types of tags to track the sharks. This included a tag mounted on the shark’s fin, which transmits the shark’s location to the researchers whenever the fin comes out of the water.

The second tag is a pop-off satellite tag, or PSAT, which tracks the temperature and depth of the water the shark is in.

In total, the team tagged 10 pregnant porbeagles and tracked them through 2023 — marking the first time the tracking technology has been used on pregnant sharks, Sulikowski said.

“When these tags come off early, we always wonder ‘Why? What happened?’ And for this particular shark, we saw some really strange data from the tags,” he said.

One shark in particular appeared to have been attacked in Bermuda.

“You can imagine the shark is swimming at the surface and all of a sudden it dives deep, and the temperature is a certain degree — it’s like 15 degrees, it’s cooler below the surface — then all of a sudden, at 600 meters, the tag’s temperature all of a sudden changes. It goes up by 10, 12 degrees, which shouldn’t happen,” Sulikowski said.

“The only reason that that would [happen] at that depth is that it had been eaten or preyed upon by something larger and warm blooded,” the director said. “That made us think, okay, what could have been eating the shark at that depth? It had to be big, because the porbeagle, it’s a large shark, we’re pushing almost eight feet on that.”

According to the researchers, the suspected predators could be bigger porbeagles, or more likely, white or mako sharks, which can both grow to 20 feet.

“It’s wild because we know that sharks eat each other, they’re cannibals, they literally have no shame out there. But it’s usually little sharks that are being eaten, not an eight-foot shark and not at the depth that it was eaten at. It was eaten at 600 meters, so, it’s a whole other environment down there,” Sulikowski said. “To think that an eight-foot shark is prey for something larger is kind of wild and mind-blowing to us.”

Of the 10 sharks, five went to Bermuda and two of those five appeared to be attacked by another animal.

Notably, a second shark appeared to be preyed upon in the same location in Bermuda as the first porbeagle.

“That time, the tag wasn’t ingested by another animal, but the shark was swimming at 600 meters before free falling to 2000 meters. So, we knew that it probably died or was probably predated on by something larger,” Sulikowski said.

The study was published Monday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science and was also featured on a 2023 episode of Discovery’s Shark Week .

Sulikowski noted that researchers have a long way to go to learn more about the species and their environment, adding, “It’s just a really wild, wild, wild west out there.”

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