Migration of Great White Shark

Migration of Great White Shark – Nicole

The whitesharktrust.org have documented the Migration of one Great White Shark, named Nicole. The great white was tagged and her migration followed, as stated below. Further information about this incredible journey is documented on www.whitesharktrust.org/migration.

“South Africa – Australia – South Africa

This is the first evidence of inter-continental trans-oceanic return migration of Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and the implications of this discovery were extremely important for conservation efforts to help list this species on the CITES Appendix II in October 2004.

The Wildlife Conservation Society in association with Marine and Coastal Management, the White Shark Trust, the Universities of Cape Town and Pretoria and the South African Museum tagged white sharks off the Western Cape (South Africa) between June 2002 and November 2003 with 25 pop-up archival satellite transmitting (“PAT”) tags, 7 near-real-time satellite (“satellite”) tags and 25 acoustic tags to study their spatial-dynamics. Using high-resolution photographic fingerprinting techniques the White Shark Trust also recorded the daily presence/absence of individual White Sharks off Gansbaai (34°39’S 019°24’E; Western Cape) since October 1997.

On the 7th of November 2003, a circa 380 cm (about 12.5 feet) total length female Great White Shark was tagged with a PAT (Pop-up Archival Transmitting) satellite tag in an area known as Haibaai near Dyer Island, Gansbaai, Western Cape, South Africa.

On the 28th of February 2004, the PAT tag released itself from the Shark at the pre-programmed date. The pop-up location indicated that this Shark travelled in 99 days to a location 2 km from shore and 37 km south of the Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia (22°01’05”S 113°53’13”E) about 11’000 kms from her tagging site.”

(all information & images courtesy of www.whitesharktrust.org)