Sharks in the Caribbean Sea participate in the fight against the invasion of arowanas, the animals that multiply rapidly and are capable of destroying many other species.
Arowanas are very beautiful animals, but they are also terrifying invasive species. Each female arowana can lay up to two million eggs a year. Current currents bring their eggs and larvae everywhere. When adult fish they quickly occupy the habitat of other marine animals. Their density can be up to 200 in every hectare.
The appearance of arowanas in the Caribbean Sea is a bad news for tourists and divers, because arowanas can destroy coral ecosystems and native animals. So advocates dive to kill arowanas, which they call "sea mice".
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also launched a campaign to eat arowanas to reduce their numbers in the Caribbean. But US ecological experts have found the campaign to be very limited, because their growth rate is so fast.
Many predators, including sharks, have not seen arowanas ever since, so they do not know if arowanas are dangerous to them. For a long time, arowanas kept swimming when swimming near sharks without being afraid of being caught.
A group of divers in Honduras came up with an idea. They train sharks to catch arowanas.
They kill arowanas and put them in front of the shark to help them create a craving for arowana.
Gradually sharks catch live arowanas.
They then released injured arowanas near the sharks for them to catch.
Honduras divers hope the participation of sharks will help them control the amount of "sea mice" in the Caribbean.
