Yurt
05-23-2007, 09:50 PM
Great white shark swims 2,200 miles to Cabo San Lucas from Monterey Bay
The electronic tag is back, fished from the waters just off the coast of Mazatlan in the Sea of Cortez after it popped off a great white shark in late April near Cabo San Lucas.
And here's the conclusion: The shark released from the Monterey Bay Aquarium more than three months ago swam 2,200 miles from the Central Coast, diving as deep as 1,000 feet and swimming as much as 300 miles offshore.
"What we've discovered is that the range of the great white shark is greater than we ever expected it to be. There are only a few other animals that make such migrations at sea: the killer whale and sometimes the tuna and the marlin," said Kevin Weng, a Stanford University graduate student who helped analyze the data from the tag.
The shark, released Jan. 16 near Point Pinos at the southern tip of the Monterey Bay, spent a 137 days in captivity. It was the second shark in the past two years to be exhibited by the aquarium, then liberated back into the wild.
But this shark, a male, swam much farther than the last one — a female that only got as far as the Santa Barbara coast.
"To see it head straight for the Sea of Cortez was surprising to me. It moved from the most northern part of the range to the most southern part," said Salvador Jorgensen, a shark expert with the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics Program, a collaboration between Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "We know there are juveniles in the gulf, but we don't know whether they are born there or whether they migrate there, and I guess we still don't"
But the migratory actions of the shark seem inherent, almost second nature, Jorgensen added.
The new data will be added to the growing amount of information retrieved from other great white sharks who've had tags placed on them to track their migration in Southern California waters, according to Ken Peterson, aquarium spokesman.
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The tag, about 6 inches long, popped off of the shark by design on April 15 and began sending data by satellite to scientists, who have spent the past month analyzing and mapping data from the tag — information that was recorded every 10 seconds while the tag was on the shark.
The aquarium will begin its fifth field season of great white research later this month, and will attempt to bring another young shark back to Monterey for exhibit. Aquarium officials also will work with research partners at Stanford and CSU Long Beach to continue tagging juvenile and adult white sharks to learn where and when they move in California waters, and to collect DNA samples to learn more about the population of white sharks in the region.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/May/23/local/stories/05local.htm
Pretty cool...
Though I did think he looked a wee unhappy in the "big" tank they had him/her in......
The electronic tag is back, fished from the waters just off the coast of Mazatlan in the Sea of Cortez after it popped off a great white shark in late April near Cabo San Lucas.
And here's the conclusion: The shark released from the Monterey Bay Aquarium more than three months ago swam 2,200 miles from the Central Coast, diving as deep as 1,000 feet and swimming as much as 300 miles offshore.
"What we've discovered is that the range of the great white shark is greater than we ever expected it to be. There are only a few other animals that make such migrations at sea: the killer whale and sometimes the tuna and the marlin," said Kevin Weng, a Stanford University graduate student who helped analyze the data from the tag.
The shark, released Jan. 16 near Point Pinos at the southern tip of the Monterey Bay, spent a 137 days in captivity. It was the second shark in the past two years to be exhibited by the aquarium, then liberated back into the wild.
But this shark, a male, swam much farther than the last one — a female that only got as far as the Santa Barbara coast.
"To see it head straight for the Sea of Cortez was surprising to me. It moved from the most northern part of the range to the most southern part," said Salvador Jorgensen, a shark expert with the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics Program, a collaboration between Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. "We know there are juveniles in the gulf, but we don't know whether they are born there or whether they migrate there, and I guess we still don't"
But the migratory actions of the shark seem inherent, almost second nature, Jorgensen added.
The new data will be added to the growing amount of information retrieved from other great white sharks who've had tags placed on them to track their migration in Southern California waters, according to Ken Peterson, aquarium spokesman.
Advertisement
The tag, about 6 inches long, popped off of the shark by design on April 15 and began sending data by satellite to scientists, who have spent the past month analyzing and mapping data from the tag — information that was recorded every 10 seconds while the tag was on the shark.
The aquarium will begin its fifth field season of great white research later this month, and will attempt to bring another young shark back to Monterey for exhibit. Aquarium officials also will work with research partners at Stanford and CSU Long Beach to continue tagging juvenile and adult white sharks to learn where and when they move in California waters, and to collect DNA samples to learn more about the population of white sharks in the region.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/May/23/local/stories/05local.htm
Pretty cool...
Though I did think he looked a wee unhappy in the "big" tank they had him/her in......