Opportunistic sharks feast on migrating birds, scientists believe.
Scientists who emptied the stomachs of baby tiger sharks have found the animals feed on songbirds before they have learned to hunt.
The team was partly inspired to explore this phenomenon after they found a small tiger shark along the Mississippi/Alabama coast which regurgitated feathers from the brown thrasher bird which lives on land, in shrubs and trees. Sharks likely targeted these birds during the spring and fall, when more than 2 billion migrate across the Gulf of Mexico to and from the Mississippi and Alabama regions, the authors believe.
Kevin Feldheim, study co-author and lab manager at the Field Museum, told Newsweek: “I was very surprised that none of the feathers were from marine birds.” He hopes the findings will help with efforts to protect tiger sharks. “The more we understand about species in general, the better able we are to conserve them,” he said.
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