 |
Bruce BD, Harasti D, Lee K, Gallen C, Bradford R
Broad-scale movements of juvenile white sharks Carcharodon carcharias in eastern Australia from acoustic and satellite telemetry
Recent advancements in tagging technology are providing greater insight into the movements of white sharks off eastern Australia. Satellite tags and long-life acoustic tags, deployed on 43 juvenile white sharks, revealed complex movement patterns over distances of thousands of kilometres and 13 degrees of latitude. Sharks ranged from the southern Great Barrier Reef to Tasmania, and across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand, and periods were included of annual fidelity to spatially restricted nursery areas, directed seasonal coastal movements, intermittent areas of temporary nearshore residency and offshore excursions. Long-term monitoring of acoustic-tagged sharks via data sharing through collaborative national and international acoustic receiver arrays offers future promise to examine movements over periods relevant to ontogenetic changes and at scales providing context to interannual variability.