Smalltooth Sand Tiger

About the Smalltooth Sand Tiger

The Odontaspis Ferox Shark, also known as Smalltooth Sand Tiger or Herbst’s Nurse Shark, appears to have an extensive fragmented distribution in tropical and warm-temperate latitudes of the world’s oceans. The Smalltooth Sand Tiger shark is rarely encountered, with only 200 records suggest that naturally, the population is very low in numbers.

Biology:

Little is known about the biology of this shark but its reproduction may be similar to that of the Sand Tiger. The maximum recorded size for females is 450 cm/14 ft 9 in TL and 344 cm/11 ft 3 in TL for males. Age and grow data are not available for this species, but generation length can be estimated from the Sand Tiger, which has a female age of maturity of 6 years and a maximum age of 35 years, resulting in a generation length of 20.5 years. The Smalltooth Sand Tiger is a shark with a short, pointed snout, small eyes, protruding spike-like teeth, and small, equal size dorsal and anal fins; first dorsal closer to pectoral than pelvic fins. This shark is grey above and paler below, it may have red spots on sides. They use their long body cavity and large, oily liver to regulate buoyancy.

Reproduction:

Previous observations suggest the species practices uterine cannibalism in the form of oophagy, resulting in the birth of single embryos from each uterus. The smallest recorded neonate, from Taiwan, was 101 cm/3 ft 3.8 in TL and exhibited an umbilical scar. It probably has a non-continuous breeding cycle similar to the Sand Tiger. They are ovoviviparous, embryos feed on yolk sac and other ova produced by the mother.

Behavior:

This species feeds on small bony fishes, squids, and crustaceans. They are not implicated in attacks on people.

Habitat:

The Smalltooth Sand Tiger is morphologically very similar to the Sand Tiger (Carcharias Taurus) but larger and bulkier. The species mainly lives close to the seabed around the islands and underwater seamounts characterized by narrow, steeply sloping shelves, or in the deep waters of continental outer shelves and upper slopes of larger land masses.

Conservation:

Although this species is not specifically targeted by commercial fishing activities, its likely low fecundity makes it susceptible to local extinction, even at seemingly small capture rates. A Colombian newspaper article (Sabogal 2007) contended that the problem of shark finning operation in waters around Malpelo Island, despite fishing being banned in its extensive sanctuary, was so critical that species such as the Smalltooth Sand Tiger were “in danger of dying out”. Located some 506 km off the coast of Colombia, The Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary include Malpelo island and the surrounding environment. This marine park, the largest no-fishing zone in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, provides a critical habitat for internationally threatened marine species, including the Smalltooth Sand Tiger. At least three countries protect this shark within the Mediterranean sea, Spain, Malta, and Croatia where ‘within waters under Croatian jurisdiction, the Smalltooth Sand Tiger Shark is proclaimed as a strictly protected species’.

The biology is poorly known, however, it is thought to have very low biological productivity, greatly reducing its ability to withstand fishing pressure. Across much of its range, the Smalltooth Sandtiger is captured as targeted catch and bycatch in artisanal, recreational, and industrial fisheries using a wide variety of fishing gears, including midwater and demersal trawl, vertical and demersal longline, demersal gillnet, spears, harpoons, and hand line, and may be retained for its meat, unless local regulations prohibit retention. Across large parts of its range, intense and unregulated fisheries operate in the core depths of the species (300–700 m). Limited data are available on population size, trends, and structure of the Smalltooth Sandtiger. The species is very infrequently reported and has been confused with other sharks, making monitoring population trends over time difficult. The low number of records in the Atlantic combined with high intrinsic sensitivity may reflect the species was previously overfished there. It is inferred to have disappeared from most of the Mediterranean Sea based on an absence of recent sightings or catches. It has been overfished in a targeted deepwater shark liver oil fishery in the Western Indian Ocean. In the Pacific Ocean off south-eastern Australia, the Smalltooth Sandtiger has been estimated to have undergone a >99% population reduction over three generation lengths (75 years) on regularly trawled upper-slope grounds. The Smalltooth Sandtiger is suspected to have undergone a population reduction of 50–79% over the last three generation lengths (75 years) based on levels of exploitation and is therefore assessed as globally Endangered A2d.

The species may be retained and utilized for its meat when captured (e.g., Hsu et al. 2013, Amor et al. 2020). It may be marketed as a different species; for example, small individuals of Smalltooth Sandtiger have been marketed as smoothhound (Mustelus spp.) in Croatia (Fergusson et al. 2008, Soldo et al . 2022). Historically, the Smalltooth Sandtiger has also been used for its liver oil, fins, jaws, and was occasionally kept in aquariums with limited success (Graham et al. 2016). It is popular for dive tourism in some locations such as the Canary Islands and Malpelo Island.

There are some species-specific conservation measures in place for the Smalltooth Sandtiger. In New Zealand, the species is protected under the New Zealand Wildlife Act 1953; it illegal to hunt, kill or harm the species within New Zealand’s territorial sea and Exclusive Economic Zone and interactions with the species must be reported (Finucci et al. 2022). The species is also protected along the New South Wales (NSW) coast of Australia where it was provided protection to avoid any mis-identification or claims of confusion with the seriously depleted Sand Tiger (Carcharias taurus) population (NSW DPI 2023). The Smalltooth Sandtiger may benefit from similar protection measures in other parts of its range where it is currently not protected (e.g., South Africa) but the Sand Tiger is protected.

In 2012, parties to the Barcelona Convention agreed that this species (as listed in Annex II of the Specially Protected Areas and Biological Diversity Protocol for the Mediterranean) cannot be retained on board, transhipped, landed, transferred, stored, sold, displayed or offered for sale, and must be released unharmed and alive, to the extent possible, pursuant to Recommendation GFCM/36/2012/1 (FAO 2012). In Croatian waters, the Smalltooth Sand Tiger Shark is proclaimed as a strictly protected species (Soldo and Lipej 2022), and the species is also protected off Malta (Graham et al. 2016).

The Smalltooth Sandtiger is known to occur in several marine parks across its distribution, including Chagos Marine Protected Area in the central Indian Ocean, Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve off New Zealand, Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary off Colombia, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve (Acuña-Marrero et al. 2013, Long et al. 2014), offering the species some refuge from fishing in these areas.

Further information is required on the distribution, ecology and life history of the Smalltooth Sandtiger, as well as interactions with fisheries across its range. To conserve the species and to facilitate recovery, a suite of measures will be required which may include total protection, spatial management, bycatch mitigation, and harvest and trade management measures (including international trade measures). Effective enforcement of measures will require ongoing training and capacity-building (including in the area of species identification). Catch monitoring is needed to help understand population trends and inform management.

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