Land & Sea goes fishing for sharks, history and education

There is so much to learn about the ocean off of Newfoundland and Labrador's coast and all the different creatures living in that amazing environment.

So, when someone pitches a Land & Sea idea to me that will give viewers a window into our watery world, well, I'm hooked.

Such was the case last year when reporter Mark Quinn and cameraman Paul Pickett came to me and shared their enthusiasm and their curiosity about sharks. 

We had heard of a tourism operator in Hare Bay, Bonavista Bay, who was carrying out shark fishing tours and gathering information on these apex predators for researchers at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Bryan Oram agreed to let Mark and Paul tag along for a day of adventure on the water. And so, off they went. 

They travelled by boat from Dover to idyllic Bragg's Island where Mark and Paul discovered an interesting connection to the subject matter of the story they were about to tell. 

As it turns out, Bryan Oram's father, Alec Oram, who was born on Bragg's Island, had all kinds of vivid and frightening memories of sharks in that very bay. 

"It had to be destroyed. If we got it, it had to be destroyed." recalled Alec Oram. "And I can remember, here, kids would be out playing and there would be a shark here in the tickle. Somebody with a gun, or three or four people with a gun, and they'd be shooting at it because they were afraid of it."

The senior Oram has fished the waters around Bragg's Island for more than half a century.

He said the attitude he had then was that the only good shark was a dead one.

Like the massive basking shark that tangled in his cod trap back in 1984.

"We had 1,800 pounds of liver and, of course, we cut the fins, and we measured it from its nose to its tail and it was a few inches shy of 30 feet," said Oram. 

And that wasn't the only shark caught in local nets. 

Oram says much smaller sharks, called dogfish, once plagued fish harvesters. 

He says there was a time when dogfish were so common that they were actually burned to heat homes.

"There's a rock when you comes in through that harbour and, in the older days, all the fishermen, when they were using trawls, they would collect all their dogfish and as they came in the harbour they threw them all out on that rock and it would be a mountain of dogfish," said Oram. "Then, in the winter after it dried out, some people would go out and get them and use it for fuel. They put it in the wood stove and burned them."

Carrying family history

Bryan Oram remembers seeing sharks in the tickle when he'd spend summers on Bragg's Island with his father and the rest of their family. 

Back then, they were mostly porbeagle sharks that would be chasing mackerel and herring collecting in the bay. 

From a young age, the sharks captured Bryan Oram's attention and his imagination.

And that lead him to start his tour company to try and change hearts and minds about this fascinating fish. 

So, in the summer, Oram takes visitors out on the ocean and fishes for sharks using rods and reels.

Once caught, Oram measures them and makes note of any marks on the body. 

He and his crew attach a small red tag to the shark before its released, so the next time the shark is caught, researchers have information about its movements. 

Someday that information could help shark biologists answer questions about the impact of climate change on the ranges of different species and why some sharks seem to have become more abundant while others, like dogfish, aren't seen by fishermen as much as they once were.

Knowing where a shark was caught may help them determine where sharks feed, reproduce and raise their pups.

"I think it's extremely important. If we don't take advantage of this opportunity that we have and try to further science and further develop our knowledge and help these sharks, we could lose them which could then result in the collapse of the ocean," said Oram.

A balancing act

Sharks maintain balance and biodiversity in the ecosystem. 

They feed on marine life that's abundant and allow other species a chance grow.  

Bryan Oram estimates they've gathered data on more than 500 sharks over the years.

They mostly catch blue sharks near Bragg's Island in the summer and of the blues that they catch, 95 per cent of them are female.

As with most shark species, females are larger than males. 

Alec Oram says he appreciates all the new details he's learning about the species.

He says his ideas about sharks have totally changed.

"I'm not scared of them now because I've handled that many and they are not the eating, killing machine that everybody says they are," he said.

He says the whole community is benefiting from the up close encounters with fish that were once vilified.

"It's not only me, [but] for a lot of people, especially the younger people coming up. Bryan has gone to school and spoken with young people. He's bringing young people out here and they are seeing it first hand," said Oram. 

When our Land & Sea team was along for the trip with Oram and his crew, they did hook a blue shark and captured some impressive video both above and below the surface. 

What they also captured is a story that we hope is both exciting and educational. 

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