Guernsey Press article from July 10, 1969 by Peter Witterick

PORBEAGLE CARRIED FOUR PUPS

That huge shark, caught at the Minquiers last Sunday week, was, as suspected, carrying young. When Storm Drift's skipper cut up the carcass for pot bait, he found four porbeagle pups inside.

Their weights? 16 1/2 lbs. (~7.5 kg), 15 1/4 lbs., 14 3/4 lbs. and 14 1/4 lbs. (~6.5 kg) - an extra 60 3/4 lbs. (~27.6 kg) on the body weight of the mother. The pups were perfectly formed and appeared ready to be expelled into the sea, where they would have been capable of fending for themselves.

Is the relatively shallow, warm water of the Minquiers a place where female sharks go to give birth to their young? It is possible, and Des Bougourd's catch will surely provide valuable information for marine biologists in a field which appears to be largely unexplored."

N.B. by Richard Lord:
Well it has taken over 30 years for the information 'to come out' of Guernsey but hopefully it will be useful. By the way, the Minquiers is a reef that is exposed at low tide to the south of Jersey.

N.B. by Henry Mollet:
This could be the heaviest porbeagle litter on record. The largest of the 4 embryos weighed 7.5 kg. In a litter of 3, the sole embryo in one uterus might reach a mass of 9 kg. Hubbs (1923) reported a porbeagle embryo weighing 9.1 kg.
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