Thanks to four girls who noticed the silhouette along the shoreline, the Coast Guard rescued a specimen of blue shark that risked running aground on the beach after giving birth to nine fry in the shallow water of the San Giorgio coast
Sciacca – A blue shark in trouble on the water’s edge with around nine newly born fry. The unusual sighting happened, on Wednesday 25 January, to four people intent on walking on the beach in the Lido di San Giorgio, in the municipality of Sciacca.
The specimen, of the species verdesca and its nine youngas soon as they were born, he was in trouble and semi-beached when he was noticed by four women who happened to be walking on the beach and who immediately contacted the local coast guard.
The soldiers, arrived on the spot and with the collaboration of the veterinary doctors of the Sciacca district and a boat made available by the Naval League of Sciacca, entered the water leading the shark, about two meters long, into a deeper area, followed from the newly born young, and subsequently by pulling the mother out of the dry area. Once released, the blue shark resumed swimming normally, moving away towards the open sea.
“It must be clarified that the blue shark is not a mammal, but an ovoviviparous cartilaginous fish, whose egg fertilization and embryo development take place directly in the maternal body, therefore it is not a real birth – explains Domenico Macaluso, responsible scientific sea sector of the WWF Sicily Mediterranean Area – The event is extraordinary in many respects, both for the singularity of the “birth”, which took place a few meters from the shoreline, and for the positive ending of the story. It is a young female specimen of blue shark or blue shark (Prionace glauca) that probably became disoriented in the imminence of the “birth”, approaching the coast and reaching the beach ».
The four young women who first tried to get close to the big shark to push it offshore are Sabah Benziadi, Algerian artist and 2021 testimonial for the sea campaign of the WWF Sicily Mediterranean Area, who had carried out an awareness-raising action on that coast, Marise La Barbera, Doris Ackermann and Palmina Maggio.
In a press release regarding the event, the Coast Guard he underlined that: “The protection of the marine environment and related fauna is one of the main institutional tasks of the Coast Guard aimed at protecting the precious and delicate marine ecosystem. On this occasion, we remind you that every citizen has the possibility, through the new “sightings” function of the PlasticFreeGC application, to report live, through their smartphone, the presence of particular marine species in the sea. The information thus received flows to the central operational of the General Command of the Coast Guard in Rome to be subjected to subsequent scientific verification by theTethys Institute onlus“.
The shark of the blue shark species, also known as the blue shark, inhabits deep temperate and tropical waters all over the world, is not dangerous for humans, and is therefore also typical of the Ligurian Sea where from time to time they are sighted not too far away. from the shore or while taking a boat trip.
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