The great white shark has been a financial bonanza to the TV and movie industries, and yet we know very little about the real animal — until now. On Thursday, two researchers from California’s Marine Conservation Science Institute announced their findings from a years-long study that involved placing satellite tags on four adult female sharks caught offshore Guadelupe Island, Mexico. The research was published today in Animal Biotelemetry.

In the past, it was impossible to track the entire two-year migration and breeding cycle of the wide-ranging female great white shark. The batteries simply wouldn’t last long enough. However, lead author Dr. Michael Domeier revealed that modern batteries with much longer lives have finally allowed biologists to track the entire life sequence.

Just getting the tags on the great white sharks sounds like a bear. But Domeier suggested that sharks have more to fear from humans than the humans have to fear from sharks. Because of stress, “the shark’s life is in our hands during the short time it takes us to capture and tag each individual,” he explained to a local TV news station.

The satellite tags allowed the researchers to track the great white sharks from their mating ground offshore Guadalupe Island. Once they got pregnant, the female sharks traveled a great distance into open ocean, far away from the males. This “offshore gestation phase” lasted roughly 15-1/2 months — most of the shark’s 18 month pregnancy.

They would then return to waters offshore Baja, California where they ultimately gave birth in the warmest months from April to August.

Here, the great white sharks are at their most vulnerable. The pregnant females, or females that have just given birth to young pups, seem to be drawn to a potentially hazardous coastal region at just the wrong time. That makes them vulnerable to commercial fishing, including nets, and the pups are most at risk because they aren’t yet strong enough to break free of many potential traps.

The males, by contrast, seem to be at a reduced risk, because they spend the smallest amount of time in the area.

Because of the long period of time it takes to carry and deliver the young, the females return to the mating site offshore Guadalupe Island every two years, while males return each year.

All in all, it’s a fascinating peek into the great white shark lifestyle that we didn’t previously know much about.

That comes fast on the heels of research published in March, when Australian and British researchers offered evidence that great white sharks must eat several times more food than earlier scientists had believed.

Are you surprised that we still had so much to learn about the great white shark?

[feeding great white shark photo courtesy BrockenInaGlory via Wikipedia Commons]

[swimming great white shark photo courtesy Terry Goss and Wikipedia Commons]

Great White Shark Migration And Mating Secrets Revealed is a post from: The Inquisitr

An Australian man received a bravery award Monday for pulling a 12-foot great white shark off a victim amidst a cloud of blood.

Trevor Burns, 50, earned the Star of Courage for rescuing Elyse Frankcom, 19, off the southwestern coastal town of Rockingham, according to the Associated Press. In 2010, Frankcom was a guide showing a group of tourist snorkelers dolphins when a great white shark locked her thighs between its jaws.

Burns, one of the tourists, saw Frankcom within arm’s reach but lost sight of her in a cloud of blood. He reached for the shark’s tail instead and held onto it for several seconds before the shark released Frankcom and swam away.

Other tourists had already fled when Frankcom began to sink. Burns’s family had safely made it to the nearby boat and feared that Burns had been the target of the shark’s attack. The Brisbane Times reports that Burns’s family watched from the top deck of the boat in horror as Burns’s body was thrashed about.

Burns, unharmed, swam Frankcom up to the boat. She was airlifted to the hospital where she underwent surgery and received over 200 stitches to her legs. She has since recovered from the attack and remains in contact with Burns, whom she returned to the ocean with less than six months later.

Burns is a native from the city of Brisbane on the other side of the country, but he had started working in the nearby city of Perth as a data analyst. He was on a vacation with his family at the time of the shark attack.

The Star of Courage is a bravery decoration awarded to Australian civilians for acts of conspicuous courage in circumstances of great peril. The award, created in 1975, is the second highest award that Australia offers civilians for bravery. The highest award is Australia’s Cross of Valor.

An additional 150 people alongside Burns earned bravery awards Monday, but none received either the Star of Courage or the Cross of Valor.

While most of Australia‘s population resides along its eastern shore, Rickingham lies on the west coast. The city has a population of over 100,000, significantly less than the nearby city of Perth, the capital of Western Australia and the country’s fourth largest city. Brisbane, on Australia’s east coast, is the country’s third most populous city.

Australia has suffered from the most shark attack deaths in the world, emphasizing why Burns’s heroism was not taken lightly and why he deserved a bravery award for rescuing a young woman from a great white shark.

[Featured image via ShutterStock]

Australian Man Earns Bravery Award For Pulling Shark Off Victim is a post from: The Inquisitr

A great white shark exclusion net has been placed on Fish Hoek Beach near Cape Town, South Africa. The pilot project began yesterday, and it will run for the rest of the year while the officials are testing to see if it’s a safe way to protect swimmers without harming the sharks or other wildlife.

The project was debated for a year before the net was finally designed and put into place. After several well-publicized shark attacks, “Tourism is in a general slump…[and] the portrayal of Fish Hoek beach as being a place that you will get eaten by a great white shark will not have helped,” noted Cape Point Chronicle’s Russell Hepworth.

Gregg Oelofse, a Cape Town environmental official, explained the new design is intended to act like an underwater fence, not a traditional net that could trap swimming sea life. The net will actually be put up and then taken down each day, so that no whale or dolphin could be trapped for a dangerous length of time.

The net will also be removed when the seas are especially rough, which isn’t a time when people will be out swimming anyway. Two local groups, Shark Spotters and South Africa Whale Entanglement Network, will remain on the job to keep the beach safe. In fact, the network has said they will keep a special team on 24-hour standby to be ready to free any trapped whales.

There have been three attacks by great white sharks at Fish Hoek beach in the last eight years. Two people died. A 42-year-old British tourist had both legs amputated after a gruesome attack in 2011.

Australian and British scientists released a new study this week showing that great white sharks have much higher energy needs and thus need to eat more than humans had previously understood. They often eat animals with lots of blubber like seals, but apparently they sometimes become confused and attack human swimmers instead.

The new net will reportedly be tested until January 2014, giving wildlife officers time to figure out if the device will work to protect against further great white shark attacks.

[great white shark photo courtesy Terry Goss and Wikipedia Commons]

Great White Shark Exclusion Net Goes Up In South Africa is a post from: The Inquisitr

The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, needs to eat several times more food than scientists had previously believed, according to a new calculation published Monday in the open access journal Scientific Reports. So if you had the idea that shark attacks are on the rise, maybe the big boys are just feeding their supersized appetites.

Jayson Semmens headed up a team of Australian and British researchers who observed that the notorious great white is a fierce predator that travels the world’s oceans, making it difficult and dangerous for scientists to study how often and how much food it really eats.

A previous calculation, done on only one individual, estimated that a 943 kilogram great white shark could survive on a mere 30 kilograms of blubber from marine mammals like seals for 1-1/2 months — “a widely cited figure that has perpetuated the assumption that large sharks only need to feed every few weeks.” The team was understandably skeptical of such a strong claim on the basis of one animal in one study.

To discover the true metabolic rate, the team looked at the energy burned by swimming. After examining almost 10,000 swim speeds, the researchers concluded that the predators demanded far more calories than the earlier estimate. Thirty kilograms of blubber would last less than 12 days, not even two weeks, let alone the six weeks suggested by the earlier research. That means that the great white shark probably eats three to four times as often as most people think.

Despite the great white shark’s enduring popularity in popular culture, including the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and the iconic movie Jaws, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has noted that science really knows very little about its biology. The IUCN has rated it as a vulnerable species because of threats like commercial or sports hunts and even media-fueled campaigns to kill the animals after a hungry shark bites.

Semmens and his colleagues feel confident that the new calculations provide a more realistic picture of how much great white sharks really consume. Pound for pound, the new estimate is comparable to how much we know that a mako shark must eat.

Is anyone really surprised by the finding that the species eats more often than once every six weeks? Or did you always suspect that the great white shark really knows how to chow down?

[great white shark photo courtesy Michael Fontenot, Flickr, and Creative Commons]

Great White Sharks Eat More Than We Thought is a post from: The Inquisitr

A great white shark has been tagged and released off the Jacksonville coast. Ocearch scientists caught the massive female shark on Sunday afternoon. The one-ton Florida shark was captured near the Mayport Naval Station.

Blood and tissues were taken from the great white shark before she was released. The Ocearch researchers dubbed the large lady, Lydia, Fox 29 WFLX reports. Four tracking devices now attached to the Jacksonville shark will log her ocean journey, The Florida Times-Union notes.

Undersea acoustic monitoring devices and satellites will chronicle the tagged and released great white shark. Genetic testing and analysis of the blood and tissue samples will play an integral role in shark population monitoring. Scientists will now be able to compare the number of sharks in the eastern and western Atlantic Ocean and off the African coast.

Ocearch found Chris Fischer had this to say about the shark release in Florida:

“This is a historic moment. We’re solving puzzle.”

The shark nealy 15-foot long great white was found in about 25 feet of water near the naval station. The crew on a research ship spotted the shark after a maneuvering through the jetties and heading back towards shore.

In January, a 3,500-pound great white shark was also found near the Florida sore. The shark found near a surf break along the Jacksonville Beach had been initially tagged along the Massachusetts coast.

Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientist Greg Skomal had this to say about great whites:

“These sharks have probably been doing this for eons. The sharks have been pretty much going undetected.”

Why several sharks have migrated to Northeast Florida remains unknown. Previous tracking statistics indicate that great whites can swim “great distances” in mere weeks.

Ocearch scientists hope that the monitoring equipment attached to Lydie will help shed light on the largely unknown habits and life cycle of great white sharks.

[Image Via: Shutterstock.com]

Great White Shark Tagged And Released Off Florida Coast is a post from: The Inquisitr

A man in New Zealand was killed today by a great white shark off the coast of Muriwai beach in New Zealand.

Reuters reports that police tried to save the man by firing guns at the shark during the attack. Despite their efforts, the man died in the shark attack.

An eye witness said:

“We saw the shark fin, and the next minute, boom, the attack came. There was blood everywhere on the water … They fired six or seven shots to the shark, three from the police helicopter and a few shots from the lifeguard. I don’t know if they killed the shark or not.”

Police Inspector Shawn Rutene said that the attack occurred about 650 feet offshore. Police went out in an inflatable raft to shoot the shark. Ruetne said that the shark “disappeared” underwater and wasn’t sure if they had killed it.

Multiple sources are reporting that the attack involved multiple sharks. The head of the volunteer lifeguard service said that “one or two” sharks were spotted during the attack and The Sun reports that four sharks were spotted during the attack.

Here’s a video about the shark attack in New Zealand.

New Zealand shark attacks are relatively rare. There have only been fourteen fatal shark attacks in the area since 1837 when records began. The last fatal shark attack occurred near the Coromandel Peninsula in 2009.

Great White Shark Kills Man In New Zealand is a post from: The Inquisitr

Shark abuse in South Africa has led to the arrest of Leon Bekker under the Marine Living Resources Act No. 18 of 1998.according to Discovery News.

Bekker, who lives in South Africa’s Western Cape pleaded guilty to charges of violating sections of the Marine Living Resources Act No. 18 of 1998, Discovery News reported.

He was charged with offenses such as: Fishing for, attempting to kill, disturbing, harassing, chumming or attracting using bait or other means, being in possession of a white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) or parts from said shark without a permit.

When Bekker was sentenced, he was given two choices: Pay a $13,000 fine or spend a year in jail.

Last year, in front of a group of onlookers, Bekker hooked the great white shark, and, two other men dragged the shark up onto the rocks. The men slid their hands into the shark’s gills and used a large hook to drag it up on the beach, Discovery News reported.

The shark languished on the beach for 16 minutes while Bekker was having photographs taken of himself with the creature.

After being contacted by worried onlookers, local marine biologist Ryan Johnson arrived at the scene. Johnson realized that the shark was close to death and told him that what he was doing was illegal. Johnson, who is also a shark conservationist, told Bekker that he was going to return the shark to the water.

In a press release, Johnson, who is also the founder of Oceans Society, wrote that photos from Bekker’s camera showed that it took the men at least five minutes to drag the shark higher up onto the rocks. He spent several minutes posing for photographs with the shark, Ryan wrote.

In court, Johnson explained that there are only about 3,500 white sharks left in the world. Killing even one of these creatures is disastrous for their conservation, he said.

In this case of shark abuse, it’s unlikely that the creature survived, Johnson said. It had been out of the water for too long and was injured too severely.

Great white sharks are even more endangered than tigers, according to Ronald O’Dor, a senior scientist at the Census of Marine Life. The Census is an international collaboration that’s in the process of cataloging marine life, according to The Guardian.

“The estimated total population of great white sharks in the world’s oceans is actually less than the number of tigers,” O’Dor said.

Fortunately, great whites will receive a helping hand in California, where they have recently attained protected status.

In 2007, analyzing records from fisheries and research vessels that spanned the 1970′s to 2005, marine biologists at Dalhousie University in Canada discovered that shark populations are in a steep decline.

Populations of tiger sharks and scalloped hammerheads have plummeted by more than 97 percent since the mid-1980′s. Tiger sharks and scalloped hammerheads had declined more than 97% since the mid-1980s. Bull sharks and smooth hammerheads fared worse–in the east coast of the U.S., their numbers plummeted by 99 percent, according to the story in The Guardian.

Will shark abuse bring about the extinction of the great white shark? What do you think?

[Image via ShutterStock]

Shark Abuse Case: Man Charged, Sentenced In Shark Death is a post from: The Inquisitr

Westport, MA – Marine biologist Greg Skomal is performing a necropsy on a 13-foot great white shark carcass which washed ashore near the Rhode Island state line on Friday night. The carcass weighed an impressive 1,500 pounds. South Shore and Goosewing beaches were closed through Sunday while patrol boats searched the area for more remains or live predators.

The remains will be left where they were found once the necropsy is completed because the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries does not have the means to move an animal of that size. Officials are reportedly hoping the remains wash back into the ocean during high tide, Fox News reports.

The decision to close Cape Cod beaches appears to have been the right choice. The unusually high number of sightings in the region not only dampened the spirits of vacationers but hurt the local economy which typically thrives during summer months.

A shark-infested season in Massachusetts included sightings of great whites less than 20 feet from children building sandcastles on the shore. A Cape Cod vacationing family reportedly saw a great white dining on a seal nearly within arm’s length from their boat, the Daily Mail reports. A Ballston surfer had his leg bitten by a shark in July. Skomal saw three of the ocean monsters measuring up to 18 feet long close to the coastline, the Cape Cod Times reports.

Swimming restrictions for the rest of the season will reportedly be reviewed on an as needed basis, according to Fox News. Although Labor Weekend will soon be over, there is still plenty of warm weather left for locals to enjoy. Those who are still willing to go into the water are warmed to keep very aware of their surroundings and stay away, far away, from seals.

An increase in the seal population is drawing the bulk of the blame for the unwelcomed influx of sharp-toothed visitors. A significant population of grey seals in the region is reportedly attracting the giant predators close to Martha’s Vineyard. The recent beach closings have drawn countless references to the 1975 cult classic movie, Jaws, which was filmed in area.

Great White Shark Carcass Washed Ashore Near Cape Cod is a post from: The Inquisitr

In honor of Shark Week, a giggle about the realities of the Great White Shark.

In Honor Of Shark Week is a post from: The Inquisitr

Great white sharks have long been a problem off Australia’s west coast, and after a surfer was bit in half by one of the beasts, some are wondering if it may be time to take the ocean’s fiercest predator off “protected species” list.

The region has long been a hot bed for great white shark attacks and Western Australia Fisheries Minister Norman Moore has begun to wonder if maybe the cause is that there are just too many sharks.

“I wonder if research might tell us that there are now much greater number of great whites than ever before, and maybe we should look at whether they should remain a protected species,” he told AFP. “This is a very distressing event and to add to the previous four fatalities, it is of great concern to me and to the fisheries department, indeed the government as a whole.”

The Global Post Dispatch reported that Moore does support killing the shark who killed the surfer, but also tha that authorities have ruled out culling the herd of great white sharks in Australian waters.. The paper also quoted Janita Enevoldsen, a spokesman for the local chapter of The Wilderness Society, who said that removing the shark’s status is probably not a good idea.

“We need to really understand them and not resort to the Neanderthal reaction of a hunt and kill,”  Enevoldsen said.

Beaches near the attack remain closed and a hunt is on for the shark in question, with bait line being dropped in the area of the attack. The remains of the surfer, Benjamin Linden, have not been recovered and it is believed the great white shark was feeding at the time of the attack.

Great White Shark ‘Protected’ Status Questioned is a post from: The Inquisitr

A 24-year-old surfer was killed today after a violent encounter with a great white shark of the coast of Australia. Witnesses detailed the gruesome scene, saying that ”half a torso” was all that remained of the victim.

According to the AFP, the young man was surfing off Australia’s west coast when he was attacked by the shark. It is the fifth shark related death in the region this year.

A friend of the victim, who was on a jet-ski at the time of the attack, told ABC:

“There was just blood everywhere and a massive, massive (great) white shark circling the body. I reached to grab the body and the shark came at me on the jet-ski and tried to knock me off. I did another loop and when I came back to the body the shark took it. I just thought about his family and if he had kids. I just wanted to get him to shore. I gave it everything I had.”

The Australian reports that officials are now hunting for the shark.

Shark Response Unit spokesman Tony Cappelluti said:

“When last seen the shark was heading offshore, but we have placed baited lines in the water near the attack site, in an attempt to catch the shark should it return to the location or pose a threat in the area.”

Shark attacks are relatively common off the coast of Australia but fatal attacks are rare. According to the AFP, Australia sees an average of 15 attacks a year but only one death. This year, however, Australia has seen five shark related deaths. Perth was dubbed the deadliest place in the world for shark attacks by Western Australia Fisheries senior shark research scientist Rory McAuley.

Shark Attack: Great White Bites Body In Half Off Australian Coast is a post from: The Inquisitr

Walter Szulc will never forget his first kayaking experience thanks to the shark following closely behind his little watercraft in Cape Cod. One has to wonder if the Massachusetts kayaker said to himself, “I think I’m gonna need a bigger boat.”  Nauset Beach visitors yelled frantically at Szulc attempting to alert him about the shark and advising him to “paddle faster,” but he could not hear their warnings from the shore. Eventually the novice kayaker did glance behind him, only to reveal he had a Great White Shark rapidly approaching, News.com.AU reports. The Cape Cod shark sighting was not the first time a menacing fin has been spotted along the popular East Coast tourist area this summer.

Shark sightings in New England waters have vastly increased since 2008 when new policies were enacted to protect specific marine animals. The grey seal is a popular menu item for sharks and among the protest species list near Cape Cod. The seal population has grown from approximately 10,000 to 300,000 since 2008, making the protected area essentially buffet for one of nature’s largest predators.

Szulc attempted to encourage his young daughter to come out into the water as well, but noting a fear of sharks, she emphatically declined. The father reportedly teased his daughter just a bit about her shark fears, noting the small odds of actually encountering one of the sharp-teethed creatures.

The Miami Herald notes that Szulc was approximately 200 feet from the Cape Cod shoe when the Great White Shark began following him in eight feet of water. Nauset Beach closed temporarily on Saturday afternoon, but was reopened to swimmers the following day.

Cape Cod Shark Encounter Sends Kayaker Paddling Frantically For Shore is a post from: The Inquisitr

Joey Nocchi was enjoying the ocean off of the coast of Cambria, California, when he had a shocking encounter with a great white shark. Nocchi said that he was kayaking along the coast when the shark took a bite out of his boat. Nocchi was forced to abandon ship but was luckily pulled from the water unharmed.

The McClatchy DC reports that Nocchi was out fishing with his buddies James Byon and Matt Kerschke. Nocchi said:

“We’d just about limited out on rock cod, and Matt caught two halibut… We were cruising along together and talking (when) I got hit from underneath and started coming up out of the water. My buddies said I came out of the water 4 to 5 feet — it flipped me over the side. The shark rolled the whole kayak over, rolled me out of it, and he went over the top of it. He swam across me — his tail touched me.”

Nocchi said that he swam back to the capsized kayak and scanned the water for the shark. His friends assured him that the shark had made a mistake and told him that he needed to flip the kayak back over and start paddling.

Kershke, who claims that the great white was about 14 feet long, told his friend:

“The shark knows it made a mistake. You’ll have to get off, turn the kayak over, and get back in. I’m going to go get the paddle, and I want you in the kayak when I get back.”

Nocchi said that he was able to get back in the kayak and paddled as quickly as he could to shore. The California man said that getting the boat back to shore was tough since the kayak had a hole in it from the shark bite.

Nocchi escaped the attack without any injuries but admitted that he was a little shaken up from the incident.  He said: “I’ll be bass fishing for a while… but probably from the shore.”

Yahoo reports that shark attacks are relatively rare in California. There have been 104 confirmed attacks (only 9 fatal) between 1926 and 2011.

Kayak Shark Attack Leaves California Fishermen On Edge is a post from: The Inquisitr