A video by my friend Carl Sorensen; he captured this shark video on a dive off Vancouver Island. I got an email a few minutes ago from Carl. He told me to feel free to embed it in the gohiking site. How cool is that? A write-up will be added later today.
The Blunt Nose 6 Gill Shark range in color from brown to tan and even black, their eyes are small and a blue green in color. They have a powerful body with a broad head. This species has a light colored lateral line down the sides and on the fins’ edges. They have one dorsal fin located near the base of the tail. Blunt Nose 6 gills can grow up to 18 feet and wiegh up to 1300 pounds, females are usually larger than the males. They can live up to 100 years in age.
The bluntnose sixgill shark is circumglobal:In the coastal waters of western america, they are found from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska to Baja California, Mexico. They are a highly migratory species that typically inhabit water depths of at least 300 feet but havbe been seen at 1875 meters In some areas, such as Vancouver Island, females move into shallow water to give birth, at which time they may be encountered by divers.
These sharks are not as uncommon as they appear to be, its just that they like deep water and are only encountered when the females come into shallow water to give birth. Male bluntnose sixgill sharks are rarely seen because they spend most of their lives in deep, open-ocean environments far beyond the shallow coastal areas where humans and divers usually look for them. They are pretty awesome to observe in the wild.
Their favorite food is Octopuss and they will hunt them in the shallows when they are there.