Enjoying a holiday on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast but can’t get that John Williams crescendo out of your head while swimming? Does it even apply? Are there any sharks in the Ostsee?
No need to panic, but there are at least 18 different kinds of shark in the Baltic Sea, which runs along the country’s northern coastline and is one of Germany’s favourite holiday destinations.
The good news is that these sharks populate the Scandinavian straits of Skagerrak and Kattegat of the Baltic, keeping them at bay from unsuspecting bathers of Usedom and the coastline’s other picturesque beaches.
Of the 18 shark species known to swim in these straits, the whale shark is the largest. At its biggest, the whale shark can grow to 12 metres long, making it the largest fish in the world. But don’t let its size fool you, the whale shark is harmless for human swimmers, looking for krill and the like instead.
Baltic Sea whale sharks are in the company of the smooth hammerhead shark, which can reach over five metres long but are more often around three metres long. Again, these 20-million-year-old animals are harmless, so you don’t have to worry about them ruining your holiday.
While creatures of the deep loom large in the human imagination, circling before they snap us up, as with most wild animals, it is humans who pose the greatest threat to sharks.
Due to anthropogenic climate change in Germany, more shark species are expected to move into the Baltic Sea in the future, while others are already facing extinction. One of the largest threats to sharks in fishing, since the animals are often killed as “by-catch”.
Since sharks take longer to reach sexual maturity, it is harder for the animals to repopulate after species losses.
Thumb image credit: Andreas Wolochow / Shutterstock.com