Scientists thrilled as an elusive Greenland shark washes up in Ireland

When Emma Murphy got word that a dead Greenland shark had washed up on the shores of northwestern Ireland, she was gobsmacked. 

Not only are the massive and ancient ocean dwellers notoriously elusive, but they usually make their homes in the remote depths of the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Murphy, a zoology curator at the National Museum of Ireland, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. “We were so excited.”

The museum says the species is “exceedingly rare” in Irish waters. This is the first record of one becoming stranded on Ireland’s coast.

But as Irish researchers analyze the remains of the ill-fated shark, one scientist says the species is likely more widespread than most realize.

World’s longest-lived vertebrate 

A bystander spotted the shark just outside the town of Sligo on April 11, and called the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, a conservation charity that has a tip line for reporting stranded whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The people who found it assumed it was a dead basking shark, a species commonly found off the coast of Ireland.

When scientists at the charity identified the species through photographs, it alerted colleagues at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. 

“We’re just, like, dying to get there, to be honest,” Murphy said. 

The Greenland shark is one of the largest carnivorous shark species in the world, according to the St. Lawrence Shark Observatory. Second only to the great white, it averages three-to-five metres in length but can grow as long as seven metres.

It’s also the planet’s longest-lived vertebrate, with a lifespan of more than 270 years. The oldest on record was estimated to be 400.  

A wider habitat range than you’d think 

While its primary habitat is the cold waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic — including Quebec and Atlantic Canada — shark scientist Dean Grubbs says Ireland isn’t outside the species’ known range.

“Being a large mobile animal, as long as the temperatures are cold, generally below 6 C, there are few barriers to their movements,” Grubbs, the associate director of research at Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, told CBC in an email.

And when you spend most of your time roughly 2,000 metres below the ocean’s surface, lots of places are cold. Grubbs says researchers have even found Greenland sharks in Belize and the Gulf of Mexico.

“They are likely far more widespread than we know,” he said. “There just aren’t people sampling the depths to frequently see them.”

‘They’re incredibly beautiful’

Because they reside in depths that are inaccessible to scuba divers, Greenland sharks are rarely spotted by humans. 

The first underwater photographs of a live Greenland shark were taken in 1995 in the Arctic, and the first video was captured at the St. Lawrence Estuary in 2003.

So when Murphy and her colleagues had the opportunity to see one up close, they were beside themselves. 

“We had to scramble over quite a lot of rocks, like a surf break, to get to the shore where the shark was,” she said. “We were just so excited. You know, we were nearly running when we got close enough to it.”

It did not disappoint, she said. 

“It’s a solemn moment to see such a magnificent and rare creature washed up,” Murphy said. “They’re incredibly beautiful.”

Fortunately for the scientists, decay had not yet set in. With the help of several local volunteers and a crane, they were able to retrieve the carcass and bring it to a nearby Department of Agriculture facility for dissection.

They are still waiting for certain test results, but so far they know the shark is a three-metre-long male, seemingly on the verge of sexual maturity. If their estimation is correct, it would make the shark about 150 years old.

“Older than the museum,” Murphy said. “Before Irish independence, you know, he was swimming around in the ocean.”

The researchers are not yet sure what killed him. He had no signs of trauma, wasn’t underweight and didn’t have many parasites, Murphy said. 

“We think he looked, you know, in pretty good health,” she said.

The scientists may not know where this shark came from, but they do know that Ireland will be his final resting place.

“We were able to save his entire skin and skull, and we are going to now look for a suitable shark taxidermist and get him prepared for display to the general public,” she said.

“So he’ll be catalogued in the museum collection and be there for generations to come and enjoy and see him close for themselves.”