The Boy in the Submarine – Episode 7: Tiger Sharks

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Whith Apex predators, we don’t understand just how important they are…

Owen

Tiger sharks like warm and temperate waters. They particularly like coral reefs and kelp forests.

Called “the garbage cans of the sea” tiger sharks will eat almost anything that they encounter to see if it is good or not, which makes them very good at cleaning up. But it also means you can find all kinds of weird junk in a tiger shark’s belly. Sometimes things that make absolutely no sense to be there.

A Tiger Shark is an Apex Predator: that means it is a hunter that eats all kinds of animals around it, but it usually doesn’t have many other creatures that eat it. Apex predators have all kinds of amazing effects on how other animals live, which also effects the plants. We have seen just how big an effect Apex predators had when we wiped out the wolves in Yosemite National Park in California, USA: without the wolves, the animals, plants, even the river and the shape of the hills slowly changed. Now that we have put wolves back in the park, it is returning to its original state.

We have no idea what might happen to the coral and kelp of our seas if Tiger Sharks were to disappear!