Tracking Oceanic Whitetips!

Sorry for the silence.
We're currently incredibly busy, not least with getting the Great Fiji Shark Count under way, and time is just simply slipping away. Talking of which, please do check out the list of participants: if you haven't already done so, book with one of them.
Those are the businesses who truly care about Sharks in Fiji.

Anyway, Mahmood is tracking OWTs from Cayman.
You can read about the details here and here but above all, you can peruse this stellar interactive tracking tool.
This is as good as it gets - kudos!

Incidentally, Mahmood is about to start publishing his first findings about the global Bull Shark genome research to which we have been contributing samples for several years - keep watching this space!

Track your Tiger Shark!

This is way cool!
Gary alerts me to Mahmood's real time Tiger Shark tracks and I am deeply impressed!

From the website.
To understand tiger shark movement behavior in more detail and aid in conservation efforts, the Guy Harvey Research Institute/Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and their project partners are investigating tiger shark movements in the western and central North Atlantic Ocean in long-term studies based out of Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the US Virgin Islands.

The sharks’ movements are being studied by employing three types of electronic tagging technology that provide complementary information – acoustic tags whose signals are detected by strategically positioned, underwater listening devices (receivers), and two types of satellite tags that relay information on where the tiger shark is and/or its depth in the ocean.

This is a continuation of these studies.
Once again, Tigers are being shown to be highly versatile not only in their diet but also with regards to the habitats they frequent, from coastal to very much pelagic. Also, they are by no means resident but can engage in very wide ranging migrations, this possibly associated with opportunities for predation. Interestingly, this does not appear to be a uniform pattern but rather, it appears that different individuals engage in completely different behavior. As an example, check out the Grand Bahama page and you will see that whereas Nikole and Christina prefer to stay close to the coast, Jamin appears to be way more adventurous - this very much like the Bermuda Tigers that are true pelagic wanderers that visit seasonal hot spots.

Please explore the site and the tracks.
I particularly liked the animated tracks as they feature a running time log which does a great job in depicting time spent in an area or distances traveled.

Enjoy!