[move]
Code:
Just when you thought it was safe to answer the phone ...
[/move]
In 2004, California's Monterey Bay Aquarium exhibited a young female specimen Great White Shark ... i.e. "Jaws".
After 198 days of captivity in the aquarium's million-gallon Outer Bay exhibit, the shark had grown from five feet long and 60 pounds to just over six feet and 160 pounds. It had to be returned to the ocean because it had developed an unnerving habit of chasing after some of its tankmates - perhaps with an unauthorized in-between-meals snack in mind or some other kind of mayhem. Almost a million visitors had come to see it.
The shark was fitted with an electronic tracking tag and returned to Monterey Bay. After a programmed interval of 30 days, the tracking tag popped to the surface for collection at a point almost two hundred miles to the south, offshore from Santa Barbara. The data recovered from the microcomputer that was encapsulated in the tracking tag revealed that the shark had traveled as far as 100 miles from shore and descended as far as 800 feet beneath the surface during its 30 day journey.
"... before a shark is returned to the wild, we fit it with an externally attached pop-up satellite tag with a tiny computer that collects and stores data. The computer records sensor data at five-second intervals to track the shark - how far below the surface it goes, the water temperature and the ambient light level where the shark is swimming. It's a detailed log of the sharks journey. On a pre-programmed date, the tag pops off the shark and floats to the surface. When the shark tag is recovered, the data is transmitted via satellite to a marine laboratory where it can be analyzed for its scientific value ..."
"In the thirty days after we released our first white shark in March 2005, it traveled more than 100 miles offshore and dove more than 800 feet deep ..."
They did it again in 2006. The second white shark was a young male specimen. After 137 days in captivity, it had grown to six and a half feet long and 170 pounds. It drew almost 600,000 visitors. When it was returned to the ocean, it was fitted with a tracking tag that was programmed to self-release and float to the surface after 90 days. The tag revealed that the shark's 90-day journey, starting from the release point in Montery Bay, had taken it more than 1100 miles to the south, off the coast of Baja, California.
The aquarium has donated $700,000 of its revenues to TOPP (Tagging Of Pacific Predators), which has enabled scientists to tag almost 100 Great White Sharks, including large adult specimens. Whenever a shark "phones home" (i.e. when its electronic tracking tag is recovered) the scientific database of shark behavior patterns is enlarged with a new set of measurements.
If you would like to browse some webpages that offer photos, video clips, podcasts and scientific observations of the world's largest predatory fish, you couldn't do better than to start with these:
White Shark Phones Home
White Shark Research
National Geographic - Great White Shark
Select ("click") the photo if you would like to hear some of the background audio presented to visitors at the Outer Bay exhibit. For a super high resolution image, click here.
Audio credits: WickedBlue Friends and Christopher KueB.
at Beer Of The Day
Bookmarks