In the north of the capital city, Santa Cruz, lies Playa de las Teresitas, a tranquil bay one can go to when one needs moments of peace or a little fun. Indeed, this beach has become a favorite destination for tourists from northern Europe seeking warmth during the winter months.
Despite the idyllic scene on Teresitas, most visitors are likely unaware of the hidden wonders in the shallow waters near the shoreline. This engineered bay is actually an unexpected sanctuary for the offspring of one of the world’s most critically endangered fish species: the angel shark.
Beneath Teresitas surface, the gentle waves acts as a magical facade, concealing an angel shark nursery.
The enigmatic angel sharks
Female angel sharks frequently migrate to these waters to give birth to live pups, ranging from around 8 to 25 in number.
The pups spend about a year in the shallows, feeding on cuttlefish and other small prey. They ca grow to a size of approximately 20 inches—about as long as a newborn human baby.
It’s after this phase that angel sharks become elusive and mysterious—they disappear for several years until reaching maturity, keeping their whereabouts mostly unknown to us humans.
In the past, angel sharks were abundant along the Atlantic coasts of North Africa and Europe, including the Mediterranean—ancient Greeks fished them. In the old Britain, people called “monkfish” due to their resemblance to a monk’s hooded robes.
Unfortunately, with the rise of industrial bottom trawling in the late 1800s, they became easy targets and a common food fish.
As expected, by the 1960s, aggressive fishing and their low reproductive rate led to a sharp decline in their populations. As a result, fishing for angel sharks became unprofitable, and the name “monkfish” was eventually attributed to another species: the anglerfish.
After that, although angel sharks were somehow spared and given a time of reprieve, they still faced incidental catches in other fishing operations. By the early 1970s, as developers transported Saharan sand to Tenerife, the fish were dangerously close to being extinct in many parts of the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
So, came new regulations and policies to protect the sharks. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, fishing or retaining angel sharks has been declared illegal. If accidentally caught, fishermen must release them back into the sea alive.
Still angle sharks are still facing a persistent threat in the bottom-trawling industry as well as other human-made changes. In fact, during the making of the engineered beach, the sharks were driven out until they deemed it safe to go back and turn it into their nursery.
Project to save the sharks
The fate of the sharks is slightly different in the Canary Islands. According to Michael Sealey, a marine biologist with the Angel Shark Project (ASP) in Tenerife, bottom trawling has never been as viable in the Canaries compared to that in most of Europe and the Mediterranean.
Why is that? Well, the seabed’s depth and intricate topography with jagged seamounts and reefs make it challenging for fishing gear to operate effectively. Additionally, the European Commission has suspended all trawling activities in the Canaries since 2005.
But what’s interesting is tha biologists only became aware of the angel shark population in the Canaries about a decade ago. As a conservation effort, in 2014, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the Museum Koenig Bonn, and the Zoological Society of London collaborated to establish the Angel Shark Project (ASP).
The project aims to collect data on critical habitats, movement patterns, and reproductive biology of angel sharks while working with local communities and authorities to protect these fish.
Understanding their life history is vital for developing effective conservation strategies and safeguarding crucial habitats like Playa de las Teresitas. But studying angel sharks has its own challenges as they are masters of disguise.
In the wild, their distinctive, flattened shape and their preference for lying on the ocean bottom, partially concealed by sand, make them difficult to spot. Moreover, their reddish- or greenish-brown coloring, adorned with small white spots, further aids their camouflage against the seabed. Only trained eyes can spot them.
Encouraging tourists to participate
Now, since it’s not easy to collect data on these mysterious and elusive sharks, added to the fact that they have low population densities spread over a vast area, collecting data is by no means an easy task. Hence, citizens have played a crucial role.
That’s why in the Canary Islands, fishermen and recreational divers can report their findings of any angel shark sightings as well as accidental catches online.
As part of an initiative by the Angel Shark Project (ASP), dive operators encourage an engaging data collection activity by organizing friendly competitions. The initiative will then determine which company can record the most sightings, significantly enhancing data collection, particularly from citizen scientists.
A good example would be Rubén Martinez, a strong advocate for angel sharks and a dive instructor based in Lanzarote, the easternmost island of the Canaries.
Martinez frequently volunteers for ASP surveys and assists in tagging the fish using shark-friendly tags. These tagging procedures are performed on the spot without having to catch the fish or remove it from the water.
Despite the seeming success of these citizen science efforts, co-founder of the ASP Eva Meyers thought that while the citizens’ role is vital and their actions are commendable, they’re not enough to secure the angel sharks’ survival—not by a long shot.
Therefore, ASP has collaborated with local officials and developed a recovery plan. It will include a variety of measures, including placing signage along coastlines that are particularly risky, as well as establishing a clear code of conduct for divers who are visiting the islands.
The hit and miss of angel shark tourism
Due to the unique relationship between humans and an endangered species of shark in the sea of an engineered beach, the diving community has become aware of the opportunity to encounter mature angel sharks in the Canary Islands.
This has contributed to the growth of shark-diving tourism in the region, generating over $24 million annually. With this economic benefit, the local communities get more money from shark diving business rather than shark fishing—encouraging the sharks’ growth.
However, the fact that there’s too much human involvement has raised concerns. Although more divers are aware of the vulnerability of the angel shark population, the sharks’ behavior in the shallow nursery zones has had a change of behavior.
For instance, on busy beaches like Teresitas, juvenile sharks typically retreat to deeper waters during the day when there are many people around. So, after Covid-19, the young sharks were unprepared for the sudden return of swimmers after about a couple years of peace.
As a result, there was an unusual increase in reported bites, locally known as “gummings.” Unlike those from tiger sharks, these bites are serious and rarely draw blood.
Regardless, the bites indicated that the juveniles had adapted to remaining hidden in the shallows 24/7 to conserve energy. And after the pandemic, the sharks have now retreated into deeper waters again to avoid interactions with humans.
Human activity and angel sharks at peace?
Nonetheless, it’s interesting to know that angel sharks have also adapted to the rapid efforts to redesign the Canaries for tourism. Although in the process of creating this beach, the sharks were negatively affected, it might have inadvertently enhanced the habitat for one of the world’s rarest fish species.
What’s clear is that after all that beach construction, people can come to the area and enjoy the lovely beach while witnessing the presence of baby angel sharks.
All in all, it’s a good example that human-wildlife associations don’t always end in conflict or the animals losing; this time, it led to conservation efforts.
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