Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary education specialist and volunteer coordinator, Becky Gustafson, was volunteering for The Marine Mammal Center (TMMC) on Saturday (March 18, 2023) when her team received a call “for a shark that washed up in the north harbor region in Moss Landing”, recounts Gustafson. Since TMMC is neither permitted nor trained to deal with sharks, the report was forwarded to the appropriate people.
Gustafson notes that the team was curious, so “we went to take a look. It was a little over 10ft long and female” is what she was told. “The animal was apparently active when the call came in around 11am, though by the time we reached it there was little to no movement.”
From FishBase: The prickly shark (Echinorhinus cookei) is a large, sluggish shark occurring on continental and insular shelves and upper slopes. It feeds on a variety of fishes, other sharks, octopi and squids. It is ovoviviparous, with up to 114 pups in a litter. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop inside eggs that remain in the mother’s body until they are ready to hatch.
Also from FishBase: This species is a type of Echinorhinidae (Bramble sharks). The genus is derived from echinos (Greek), meaning spiny, and refers to thorn-like denticles (aka brambles) on the body; while rhinus is an ancient name for sharks, from rhine (also Greek), which means rasp, alluding to a shark’s jagged, rasp-like skin. The species cookei is in honor of the “distinguished conchologist” Charles Montague Cook, Jr. (1874-1948), from the Bishop Museum (Honolulu).
