Blacktip Reef Shark

Photo: Gilberto R. Borges G · © all rights reserved

Small resident blacktips patrol the reef edges surrounding the Hawar Islands, particularly active in the tidal channels where current flushes prey items from the seagrass beds out over the reef. Their presence is ecologically significant as top predators in a protected system that has not experienced the shark population crashes seen elsewhere in the Gulf. Divers frequently encounter four or five individuals on a single dive, a density that reflects the health of the broader ecosystem.