Last Update : Monday 20 August, 2001 10:17 PM

		Illust : Anuwat Saisaeng

Silver-tip Shark
Scientific name	Carcharhinus albimarginatus
Common name	Silver-tip Shark
Size	2.5 meters
Dispersion	Islands off Andaman Sea shore, very few in the Gulf of Thailand.
Area found	Near the seabed and amidst the water.
Depth	1-60 metres
Feed on	Demersal and Pelagic fishs
Situation	Very few are left, so called scarcely found.
Conservation	Wait for Sharks Conservation Act, which is hoped to pass one day. Stop eating shark fins for the time being.
Fish Tip	Little harm to human. They are elegance of underwater world.

          Silver-tip shark is the most elegant shark in the Thai Sea. Those who have seen him will support this statement. He looks like the ideal shark, with long slim body full of energy from lean muscles. He swims serenely like King of the Sea should do, unlike the swimming of Leopard shark or other sharks.

          This type of shark has permanent boundary, normally covers the area of 2 – 10 square kilometers. Any coral reef accommodates him will continue to have him. If, either because of fishing or shark hunting of any kind, he has abandoned any coral reef, he would be gone forever.

          Divers know silver-tip shark well. But only a few has seen them. They are scarcely found in the Thai Sea nowadays. Points where they are spotted regularly are San-Chalarm Pinnacle at Similan Islands and the back of Torinla Island. Probability to spot them drastically reduced. There is a better chance to spot them in the Burmese Sea. I went diving 7 years ago, the first minute I was in the water I saw 11 of them. That was quite a remembrance! Some say probability to see them in the Burmese Sea gradually reduced as well, almost to the same level as to see them in the Thai Sea.

          At the coral reef in the middle of the sea called Burma Bank, there is still shark feeding activity, pouring fish or meat down to them or feeding them by hand. There used to be at least four silver-tip sharks over there. But the quantity has reduced now. In some trip, not even one can be found. Luckily, I had taken many photographs of them. So, I can present some to our viewers.

          Silver-tip shark is sensitive to noise. When they heard the noise of boat-engine or other noise in the place where they have never heard before, most will come to observe. Although the sea is now full of boat-engine noise, fewer sharks exist. So, probability that they would come to observe is less. The case is ordinary logic.

          This case can be remedied simply by stop eating all kinds of shark fins to conserve the sharks. They had been knocked on the head, slashed the fins off and shoved the body down the water. I witnessed this statement with my own eyes. Divers often meet sharks without fins lying dead under the sea, especially at Tachai Island. The sight is less frequent now because there is almost no shark left to be killed.

          A sea without a shark is no longer a sea. If you love the Thai Sea, want the Thai Sea to be beautiful, want the diving tourism in Thailand to continue flourishing, keep silver-tip sharks in our sea.

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