ADELAIDE, Australia (11 Dec 2003) -- IT'S best known for its capacity to kill, but now researchers can also prove that the great white shark travels vast distances on previously unknown migrations. 'Ticka' has provided new information for scientists. An electronic tag attached to a 3.5m female great white dubbed "Ticka" in July shows she has travelled more than 3000km from Dangerous Reef, near Port Lincoln in South Australia to the northern reaches of Western Australia. It is the first proof that adult great whites move between territorial waters, and adds to claims they travel the world's oceans at will. The tag, fitted to the shark by PhD student Rachel Robbins, provided a travelogue of Ticka's journey and was beamed directly to four satellites. The data from the bug that was automatically released from the shark on December 2 was downloaded from Ticka this week. "When I looked it up on the website I screamed," Ms Robbins said yesterday in Adelaide. "It's a huge swim. To travel that distance in four months is amazing - it really is groundbreaking stuff." The tagged shark is now swimming in about 600m of water about 140km west of Carnarvon. The information must next be sent to Britain to be decoded before being used in research being led by the University of Technology and Adelaide's Fox Shark Research Foundation. | | Click to enlarge Ms Robbins started studying sharks at the age of seven when she saw a dead Thresher on the deck of a fishing boat returning to her native Portsmouth, England. She earned a marine biology degree at university in Belfast and then came to South Australia to see the great white in person and decided to stay. Ms Robbins said the most detailed information on great whites relates to their ability to hunt. "It's all about predation," she said. But little is known about how the sharks breed, give birth or migrate. "If we could join up the two populations of South Africa and Australia - that would be massive." SOURCE - The Australian |
