In a current Bay Nature article [2], Glen Martin summarizes recent TOPP activities and results with a focus on white sharks:
During the past decade, TOPP has deployed sophisticated satellite archival tags and sonic tags on 4,000 individual Pacific predators including blue whales, elephant seals, leatherback turtles, black-footed albatrosses, bluefin tuna, and blue, white, mako and salmon sharks.Tagging studies revealed that white sharks converge at the “White Shark CafĂ©”, an area at about equal distances away from Hawaii and the Californian coast. What are these top—or better TOPP—predators doing there?
Among the findings of this research: contrary to past assumptions, white aharks are not coastal homebodies. Early conclusions by TOPP scientists—published in 2002— demonstrated that white sharks are wide-ranging, venturing far into the Pacific, with one individual traveling 3,800 kilometers in 40 days to the west coast of Kahoolawe Island in the Hawaiian archipelago.
Keywords: oceanography, tracking of marine species, Pacific Ocean, migration of white sharks
References
[1] Barbara A. Block, Daniel P. Costa, George W. Boehlert and Randy E. Kochevar: Revealing pelagic habitat use: the tagging of Pacific pelagics progam. Ocean. Acta 2003, 25, 255-266. PDF.
[2] Glen Martin: Beyond Jaws • Fathoming the Ways of the White Shark. Bay Nature January-March 2010, pp. 16-19, 23. Online-Article.
[3] Tagging of Pacific Predators: TOPP.
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