Six gill munchies

Please excuse the off topic post...

Got in the water yesterday with my nephew, home from a year in Iraq. We
pulled 86 for 36, the vis was about 5 feet in the top twenty, and then once
we cleared the scum line, it cleared out to a glorious 35 to 40 feet. Temp
on the surface was 70 degree's, and about 48 at 80 feet, which made for a
brisk dive in our wetsuits.

We hit the water at low tide, and on the walk in we saw a number (3 or 4)
dogfish on the rocks, all looking like they had been "egged" or filleted,
and then tossed. As our dive progressed, we saw more dogfish ay various
depths in the water.

Hood Canal has been victim of Low Dissolved Oxygen incidents in the past
couple years, with severe consequences to the marine populations:

http://www.prism.washington.edu/hcdop/index.html

http://www.hcseg.com/Dissolved_oxyge...DOP%20home.htm

The other marine life appeared healthy as ever, with clouds of rockfish,
ling cod, healthy tunicates, rock and Dungeness crab, etc. And we saw
several very healthy wolf eels as well.

Normally, you only see dogfish when you are deep enough that you must have a
light to see, and detect them only because you get the reflection from their
retina's, so seeing a number of them dead in the shallows is definitely an
anomaly.

When I got back last night, I was wondering if the kill might be a precursor
to another LDO event, so I called a friend and diver who has been involved
in the program and research,

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/InNews...round2004.html

He told me that what we saw was most likely the result of six gill sharks
feeding, and that several were recently spotted at Whitney Point by divers
there. Apparently the six gills bite the stomachs out of the dogfish and
leave them. This is exciting news, because I haven't yet seen a six gill in
the water, and now we have evidence of their presence in Hood Canal.

Scott wrote:
>
> He told me that what we saw was most likely the result of six gill sharks
> feeding, and that several were recently spotted at Whitney Point by divers
> there. Apparently the six gills bite the stomachs out of the dogfish and
> leave them. This is exciting news, because I haven't yet seen a six gill in
> the water, and now we have evidence of their presence in Hood Canal.

I can see the headlines now:

Six-pack Hound corners Six gill shark in canal.