Angel sharks are a shark species which where found all over Europe long time ago. Sadly they disappeared in many places and are now in danger of extinction because of mankind and especially because of trawling.
Canary Islands is on of the last resorts where we can find them and where we try to protect them, trawling is forbidden on Tenerife!
On our lovely islands there population maintains stable and they are one of the most seen sharks when scuba diving. An encounter with an angel shark is the highlight of a dive 🙂
So, are angel sharks dangerous?
Not at all!
They belong to the squatina family and are not offensive. Most day they lay in the sand and go hunting small fishes at night. Given the fact that they like sandy beaches there have been cases of people stepping on them. This sometimes causes a reaction from the shark: a small bite mark. These are mostly baby sharks of around 30cm so you can imagine the size of their mouths 😉
If you are lucky to see one of them don’t think about what Hollywood told you about sharks, but enjoy this unique encounter!
Scubanana is actively involved in protecting angel sharks, if you want to participate the Project AWARE’s Shark Conservation Specialty is a very interesting course for you!
This week we went to one of the most famous angel shark spots “Las Teresitas” to search some of them at night. We where lucky and saw around 9-10 baby sharks swimming around in 1-2m deep water. We had a really great time, have a look at the video:
