Biologists Just Found Out What the Bull Sharks in Texas Actually Are

Fishermen have been pulling sharks out of Texas rivers for generations, a full day's drive from salt water, and for decades those catches were written off as mistakes or tall tales. This deep dive looks at what bull sharks actually are, the biology that lets one animal switch between ocean and fresh water at will, and why scientists spent most of a century mistaking the same species for a dozen different ones around the world. We also get into what the shallow brown bays along the Texas coast are really doing for this species, what the long-term survey data shows about their numbers, and how much of the danger reputation holds up.