The shark may have made the journey to find a mate
Posted on 10/08/2005 11:29:02 AM PDT by bd476
A great white shark crossed the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia and back again within just nine months.
It was one of several great whites tagged by researchers in an attempt to improve conservation strategies.
Writing in the journal Science, they say the journey is unparalleled among fish - only tuna come close.
The mere act of tagging a great white is something of a feat; several people need to hold the creature still while the satellite tracker is attached.
EPIC OCEAN JOURNEY
In pictures
The project will inform
future conservation strategies
This device was fixed to the female shark's trademark dorsal fin. Thankfully no scientists - and no sharks - suffered during the tagging.
The conservationists were investigating how far great whites wander, to see what protection measures might be needed to save them from extinction.
Several of the sharks migrated from South African to Mozambiquan territorial waters - where they are not protected.
Mate search
But Ramon Bonfil of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, US, and colleagues were stunned by the epic journey of the shark they called Nicole - after the shark-loving Australian actress Nicole Kidman.
"We suspect that she went for reproductive reasons," Dr Bonfil said.
"There's plenty of food around South Africa and she would be using too much energy to just go to Australia to feed. Of course we can't prove this at this stage, it is just a hunch."
Great whites were once thought to keep to coastal regions, but this was a trek across a vast expanse of open ocean.
The journey was very direct, not some aimless wandering. And the stay near Australia was only brief.
The researchers say the fact that they saw a shark make the journey at all - after observing only about 20 animals - suggests it is common behaviour.
Their concern is that such migrations make the great whites vulnerable to long-line fishing.
It is already known that lesser sharks do get captured and killed this way.
Given that the great white's population is small anyway, the species can ill afford to lose numbers in this way.
"...The mere act of tagging a great white is something of a feat; several people need to hold the creature still while the satellite tracker is attached..."
I don't imagine it would be much fun to draw the short straw for that task.
Great White
How in the heck do you hold a great white?!?
Clink on the "In Picture" link. Pretty amazing.
LOL!
Very carefully I reckon.
61% of the time the shark was near the surface.
It would be more comforting for this human if the shark took more frequent deep sea dives.
Sharky needs a hug!
[This device was fixed to the female shark's trademark dorsal fin.]
How does a shark get its dorsal fin "trademarked"?
I wonder what she ate when she was in the middle of the ocean, far from any coastline or islands.
/ pun intended
Perhaps they fast when traveling cross-ocean.
On the other hand, there are many shark attacks on the Australia coastline. Maybe the shark was saving her appetite for a feast upon arrival.
Anything she felt like, I imagine.
I hope it DID NOT find a mate. These things are killers to all who enjoy the ocean.
I don't begin to know how these guys are making this happen, and getting away with it too. I won't be surprised to hear that there are fewer shark researchers, though, if they keep it up.
OTOH, this is really cool.
It is a preety cool job, really.
Holy cow! That's pretty deep.
"Take off! To the Great White North!
Take off! It's a beauty way to go.
Take off! To the Great White North!"
Perhaps ... like salmon and several others ... they return to the site of their birth ...
Sperm whales dive deep to eat squid. Maybe that's what she was doing.
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