Mediterranean Sea, The (7/8)
This is also part of this series: Oceans (8)
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| Subjects: Adaptations, Animal Behaviour, Animals, Biology, Climate Change, Coral Reefs, Earth Science, Endangered Species, Fish, Fisheries, History, Invading Species, Ocean, Science | ||||
Under cover of night they dive the treacherous Straits of Messina, where they hope to find and film one of the largest predatory sharks in the world, the increasingly threatened six-gill shark. This fish normally lives several hundred metres below sea level and so is rarely seen. But here in the Straits, tides and currents force deep sea water through a narrow, shallow bottleneck, bringing with it the six-gill shark, a living fossil which closely resembles prehistoric sharks from 200 million years ago. The team dives down to a Roman shipwreck laden with wine vessels en route to Africa. Via an examination of the remains of the cargo, they investigate how the Mediterranean gave rise to Europe’s first super-power. They also explore a perilous network of submerged caves to find rare rock formations, evidence of huge changes to the Mediterranean which changed the coastline and created the ideal conditions for people to spread and settle here. Atlantic bluefin tuna have been an important part of Mediterranean culture for thousands of years. Today, industrial fishing techniques are having are an enormous impact on this sea. Diving a tuna farm is the only way for the team to get up close to schools of bluefin tuna and observe a once-abundant fish now at risk of extinction. |
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