Later studies proved that the bull sharks were able to transit the San Juan River by jumping upstream like salmon, ending up in Lake Nicaragua. In 1961, studies determined that the Lake Nicaragua Shark was, in fact, the common bull shark (Charcharinus leucus), a species known to exist in fresh water elsewhere in the world. Scientists believed that the landscape had changed over time, slowly closing the Lake Nicaragua off from the Pacific Ocean, trapping the sharks.

In the scientific community, the species was believed to be one of a kind – the only true freshwater shark that existed anywhere in the world. Twenty years later, I no longer believe in the Ogopogo, but there is a different lake-dweller, equally mysterious and similarly shrouded in myth and legend, living nearly 7000 km southeast of where I grew up, in Lake Nicaragua – the Lake Nicaragua Shark.įifty years ago, before much was known about the marine life in the area, scientists believed that the sharks found in Lake Nicaragua were an endemic species, the Lake Nicaragua Shark. As a kid growing up in Canada, I visited Mara Lake in British Columbia with the family each summer, and every year, we’d be regaled with stories of the Ogopogo, a lake monster not unlike Scotland’s famous Nessie, that dwelled in the depths of the lake.

Lake nicaragua earthview