Where we catch salmon, we also catch...salmon sharks!

By Wyatt Fournier, NOAA Fisheries, on the Northwest Explorer

As we have mentioned in the field notes before, we occasionally catch one of the North Pacific’s most efficient marine predators, the salmon shark (Lamna ditropis). This species of shark belongs to the family Lamnidae or Mackeral sharks. Sharks in this family are fast, warm blooded (endothermic), active swimmers and include the infamous white shark. Salmon sharks feed upon salmon, herring, sablefish, walleye pollock, rockfishes, and any other fish it is able to catch. It is the most common epipelagic shark, meaning that it lives in waters 0-200 meters depth, in sub-arctic and cold-temperate North Pacific waters. Its range that extends across the Bering Sea to Japan and down to southern Baja California. 

This salmon shark was released alive and well to hunt another day.

Salmon Shark