Shark related question re power plants

[BrianBM]

Inspired by the Plymouth nuclear power plant thread.

 

Bass and other fish will hang in the hot water from the heat exchangers of a powerplant all winter long. Does anyone know if a big shark, GW or otherwise, has ever been known to do so?

 

[mikez2]

26 mins ago, BrianBM said:

Inspired by the Plymouth nuclear power plant thread.

 

Bass and other fish will hang in the hot water from the heat exchangers of a powerplant all winter long. Does anyone know if a big shark, GW or otherwise, has ever been known to do so?

 

I don't know the answer but I believe there are recievers for the radio tags in the general vicinity of Plymouth. Sharks are pinged in the area fairly often.

However the tagging program wouldn't overlap with the plant in operation unless it was for a year or two. No data, or very little data would have been recorded while the plant was in working. 

 

[zak-striper]

2 hours ago, BrianBM said:

. Does anyone know if a big shark, GW or otherwise, has ever been known to do so?

If so, they should put nuke platts in Chatham and on Nantucket. 

[Intrepid95]

I would say it's unlikely. Great whites and other large sharks in our area like basking sharks are pretty much all basically pelagic "wanderers." Look at the Ocearch pings. Even if they may linger in a general area for a bit (like during the summer around Monomoy/outer cape) they don't really stay in one very small contained location, they venture up and down the coast, around PTown into Cape Cod Bay, down to the islands, sometimes out to Bermuda and back. They don't stay put in one spot, even with the crazy amount of easy dinner available to them. So I don't really think the warm water discharge of a single power plant is really enough of a draw to keep them around.

[BrianBM]

I wuz wonderin'.  Thank you.

[EliasA]

I dunno, bug temperature breaks like that always seem to attract sharks. I can imagine a shark swimming the coast and hitting that warm water for a buffet. Our sharks up here tend to be pretty migratory, bur a large part of that is due to our cool and shifting water temps, in warm water areas sharks, especially whites, can become territorial or simply attached to an area.

 

fishing temp breaks off shore, we never liked targeting bigger than .5 or 1 degree breaks because if you find 5, 10, or more degree changes the sharks will show up in numbers without fail. They’re definitely drawn to warm water and big temp lines. That 70+ degree power plant water hitting 50/60 degree seawater will definitely attract stuff

[Two Rock]

Plymouth, February 1938, tangled up in a draggers net 4 miles east of the gurnet, long before the power plant

[Two Rock]

[BrianBM]

Roughly how deep would the water be, at that location?

 

Big sharks tolerate colder temperatures than small ones. That looks like a good size GW to me.

[Two Rock]

49 mins ago, BrianBM said:

Roughly how deep would the water be, at that location?

 

Big sharks tolerate colder temperatures than small ones. That looks like a good size GW to me.

It can range from around 100' to 125' feet deep

[BrianBM]

Perhaps he failed to note "time to migrate south" in his Day-Keeper.

 

Anybody remember those? I used one for awhile.

[NHAngler]

Just remember fish only do two things. They eat and make little fish. In general, If conditions are favorable to either of those things and within their tolerance levels, where they do it does not matter much to them.  As our waters change, I’m sure we’ll see them adapt or disappear.

Edited February 7 by NHAngler

[CWitek]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:46 PM, Intrepid95 said:

I would say it's unlikely. Great whites and other large sharks in our area like basking sharks are pretty much all basically pelagic "wanderers." Look at the Ocearch pings. Even if they may linger in a general area for a bit (like during the summer around Monomoy/outer cape) they don't really stay in one very small contained location, they venture up and down the coast, around PTown into Cape Cod Bay, down to the islands, sometimes out to Bermuda and back. They don't stay put in one spot, even with the crazy amount of easy dinner available to them. So I don't really think the warm water discharge of a single power plant is really enough of a draw to keep them around.

I help researchers place acoustic tags in sharks off Long Island, NY.  Last season, we caught a small white a few miles south of Fire Island; 3 days later, it pinged near Hudson Canyon, close to 70 miles away.  The animals are always on the hunt, and wouldn't easily contain themselves in such a small place.  I can't even see them doing it if feeding opportunities were unusually good.