In the early dawn of March 31, 2005, researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium made history. Standing on a small boat far off the coast of California, they carefully lifted a sling carrying a six-foot-long great white shark over the side and — splash! — the powerful fish was back in the wild, after spending a record 198 days at the aquarium.

As NATURE’s Oceans in Glass shows, displaying a great white — one of the sea’s most impressive predators — has long been a dream of aquariums around the world. But previous efforts to care for the sharks — which can grow to weigh two tons and measure 21 feet long — have largely ended in failure. The great whites proved too big, too aggressive, or too sensitive to live penned up. Some wouldn’t eat, says biologist Dr. Randy Kochevar of the aquarium, “and sharks can’t survive long if they aren’t feeding.”

In Monterey, however, biologists working on the aquarium’s shark conservation and ecology project believed it was possible for a great white to survive — and thrive — in one of the facility’s giant display tanks. They also believed that letting the public see these magnificent hunters up close could pay big dividends for their efforts to protect sharks, which are under increasing threat.

With this goal in mind, several years ago the aquarium’s researchers began experimenting with ways to keep a captive shark happy. First, they built an enormous 4-million-gallon pen in the ocean off Malibu, California. When commercial fishing boats accidentally caught a great white, the aquarium arranged for it and several others to be moved to the pen. There, researchers learned to feed the sharks and understand how they behaved in captivity.

Those lessons bore fruit in August 2004, when a commercial halibut fisherman caught a young, five-foot long female great white in the waters off Huntington Beach. After being held in the Malibu pen for three weeks, she was moved to the aquarium for display. Over the next six months, nearly one million people came to see her. “She was an incredible ambassador for white sharks and shark conservation,” says Kochevar.

But the young shark was also growing bigger and more restless. “She basically grew more than a foot and gained 100 pounds,” according to Kochevar. “And one day she apparently decided she needed to increase the breadth of her diet,” which consisted mostly of salmon and other fish fed to her by aquarium staff. The great white began stalking other animals in the tank, eventually attacking two smaller soupfin sharks. The staff decided it was time to release the growing animal back into the wild, but not before she provided one last service to science.

This great white shark was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for about six months.

On their way to the release site, researchers attached a sophisticated electronic tag to the shark that would record her movements for 30 days and then pop off, transmitting its location to a satellite for retrieval. Similar tags have helped revolutionize our understanding of the habits of a myriad of animals, from sharks and sea turtles to seals and bluefin tuna. Indeed, the aquarium is part of an innovative effort — called the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) project — that is harnessing all kinds of marine animals to carry sensors into the ocean.

In the great white’s case, the tag worked perfectly. After popping off the shark on schedule, the tag was retrieved from surly seas off the coast of Santa Barbara by Stanford University doctoral student Kevin Weng. “They lose container ships out there!” he exclaimed after using a long-handled net to scoop the tag out of the whitecaps.

The researchers say the tag showed that after being released, the shark swam more than 100 miles offshore and to depths of greater than 800 feet. “It’s clear she survived and thrived,” says Kochevar, adding that the shark first swam several hundred miles south along the California coast, “then took a hard right and headed offshore for a while, then returned to the coast. … There’s no question that she was hunting and feeding on her own.”

Similar data from other young sharks is beginning to give scientists a picture of how these animals use the ocean and how people could improve conservation efforts, according to Kochevar. There is little question that the great white’s brief stay at the Monterey Bay Aquarium has helped stoke public support for shark research and conservation, he adds. Not long ago, the aquarium’s trustees decided to increase their shark research budget by half a million dollars.

To learn more about the TOPP project, visit http://topp.org/.

Learn the surprising truths behind the monster myths on NATURE’s WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE.

Each year, in the late summer, a region known as the Red Triangle bustles with marine mammal activity. Lying between San Francisco and Monterey, the Red Triangle includes beaches where elephant seals go to molt, and offshore sites where great whites feed on unwary prey. When not prowling the Red Triangle, great white sharks search the kelp forest for sea lions, or roam the open ocean. Their migration is predictable. Each year they turn up at the same place at the same time, occasionally crossing paths with humans who still swim and surf in these dangerous waters.

Experts have spent decades studying these legendary killing machines of the seas and the animals that make up their food chain, including elephant seals, killer whales, sea otters, and sea lions. Their research reveals several surprising facts. Great whites are not always solitary hunters, they occasionally hunt and feed together. Once thought a coastal species, great whites do swim in the mid-Pacific, at depths matching those of female seals. Sea otters were previously considered immune to attacks by great whites. In fact, they are often their victims.

NATURE challenges you to join this exploration of the infamous WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE.

To order a copy of WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE, please visit the NATURE Shop.
Online content for WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE was originally posted November 2003.

In the film JAWS 4: THE REVENGE, a deadly, man-hungry great white travels from New England to the Bahamas in pursuit of the family that exterminated its relatives in the first three JAWS movies. As rumors of white shark activity begin to circulate, a pair of marine biologists are doubtful that a white shark could swim in such a warm climate. Great whites are temperate water fish that remain in the coastal waters farther north, they say. The possibility that a shark may have traveled more than a thousand miles from the Notheast Atlantic coast to the Bahamas is considered preposterous. The film’s plot is ridiculous for a number of reasons. The idea of a shark with a vendetta is comical.

Yet since the movie’s premiere in 1987, it’s become apparent that one element of the otherwise ridiculous story is not so outrageous. Recent research conducted off the California coast shows that white sharks travel far more than was formerly believed. Previous tracking studies only followed the sharks for a few days, and it was assumed that great whites never ventured too far from shore — home of the coastal seal and sea lion colonies where these hunters find their favorite prey.

“Going into this, what we expected was that white sharks were just coastal animals that breed in Southern California, then migrate a few hundred miles north to feed on seals,” stated biologist Burney Le Boeuf of University of California-Santa Cruz. “But it turns out they’ve got a life at sea, and when they’re in the open ocean, they’re diving very deep at times.”

LaBoeuf is one of six scientists who contributed to the research, published on January 3, 2002, in the science journal NATURE. Great white sharks are tremendously difficult creatures to study. They don’t respond well to captivity, and are next to impossible to observe closely in the wild. For the NATURE study, researchers fixed pop-up satellite archival tags to the backs of six adult great white sharks — four males and two females found near seal and sea lion colonies off the California coast. Every two minutes the electronic tags recorded information on water depth, temperature, and light. The tags were programmed to detach on a specific date, at which point they floated to the surface and delivered their data to satellites. Scientists used the light data to determine the precise geographical journey of each shark.

During the winter a male shark named Tipfin traveled more than 2,000 miles from the Farallon Islands off San Francisco to the coastal waters off the Hawaiian island of Kahoolawe. It remained in Hawaii until the next summer. Three other tagged sharks made wintertime migrations to a subtropical area of the Pacific, hundreds of miles west of the Baja coast, where they spent several months lingering in the open ocean. What’s more, the electronic tags also showed that, in the open ocean, the sharks would occasionally dive as deep as 2,040 feet below the surface. The data suggests the sharks divided their time between two primary depth levels: either 15 feet below the surface or between 900 and 1,500 feet underwater.

Researchers are still figuring out what the purpose of these migrations may be. “Such a long migration suggests a possible rendezvous for mating, or a move to feed on different prey,” said LaBoeuf. Meanwhile, the same team of scientists is conducting another study to learn more, and similar satellite studies conducted in other great white hot spots — South Africa and Australia — have documented sharks with a comparably long-range migratory pattern.

To order a copy of WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE, please visit the NATURE Shop.
Online content for WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE was originally posted November 2003.

California State Parks: Año Nuevo State Reserve

http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=523

Explore the region where sharks, killer whales, and elephant seals converge.

The International Shark Attack File

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm

Learn more about shark attacks — from where they are most likely to occur to the number of attacks worldwide. Then, find out how to reduce your chances of shark attack.

Florida Museum of Natural History: Great White Shark

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/White/White_Shark.htm

Get the latest news on white sharks and learn more about the ancient Megatooth shark, Carcharodon megalodon.

NOVA: Island of the Sharks

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sharks/

Go on an adventure to Cocos Island, where there are more sharks per cubic yard of water than any other place on the planet. Discover other species in “World of Sharks” and meet the “Sharkmasters.”

The Pelagic Shark Research Foundation

http://www.pelagic.org/

Read articles on the Red Triangle and great whites by this research institution dedicated to studying the sharks that patrol California’s coast.

South African White Shark Research Institution

http://www.whiteshark.co.za/

This institution promotes the conservation of the great white shark and its environment, as well as disseminates accurate information about sharks.

The Waikiki Aquarium SharkCam

http://waquarium.mic.hawaii.edu/coralcam/index.html

Watch videos and live images of sharks of all species from the Hawaii-based marine center.

Books

Allen, Thomas B. SHARK ATTACKS: THEIR CAUSES AND AVOIDANCE. Guilford: The Lyons Press; 2001.

Cerullo, Mary M. THE TRUTH ABOUT GREAT WHITE SHARKS. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000.

Cousteau, Jean-Michel. COUSTEAU’S GREAT WHITE SHARK. New York: Harry N. Abrams; 1995.

Ellis, Richard and John E. Mc Cosker. GREAT WHITE SHARK. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Gustafson, Sarah. THE SHARK DICTIONARY. New York: Checkerboard Press, 1992.

Levine, Marie. GREAT WHITE SHARKS (THE UNTAMED WORLD). New York: Raintree/Steck Vaughn, 1997.

Lineaweaver, Thomas. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SHARKS. New York: Lyons Press, 1986.

To order a copy of WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE, please visit the NATURE Shop.
Online content for WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE was originally posted November 2003.

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To order a copy of WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE, please visit the NATURE Shop.
Online content for WHITE SHARK/RED TRIANGLE was originally posted November 2003.

Sharks come in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes. Here are profiles of just four of the more than 350 known species.

The Wobbegong

The Wobbegong, or Carpet shark, is a pudgy, toad-like bottom dweller common along the coast of Australia and the warm waters around other Pacific islands. As THE SECRET WORLD OF SHARKS AND RAYS shows, the Wobbegong has short, wiggly tendrils around its mouth that resemble seaweed, fooling small fish into thinking the shark is a place to hide. Off Australia, the Wobbegong “is usually the first shark a diver encounters,” says Stephen Bilson, a Down Under diver who runs a Web page dedicated to sharks. “The first time I ever saw a Wobbegong, I was down on the wreck of the ‘Scottish Prince’ on the Gold Coast of Queensland. The instructor called us to him and was pointing to a part of the wreck. When I got there, I got the shock of my life! Here within about 18 inches of my face were what I considered to be huge animals. There were a whole bunch of them lying on top of each other, the largest about five feet. It was a magical experience for me.”

“If you haven’t seen a Wobbegong,” Bilson says, “they are extremely well camouflaged. I’ve seen many divers kick them, stand on them, or run into them. That is really the biggest danger. It must always be remembered that these are big fish with teeth, not really scared of divers. I’m not saying they are a dangerous species of shark — I’m just pointing out that if you provoke one, it might bite you. If they do bite you, they have a tendency to hold on.”

Basking Shark

Though Whale sharks are the world’s largest shark, Basking sharks come in a close second, growing to over 30 feet long. Like Whale sharks, Basking sharks are gentle creatures that feed on plankton. They live around the world, cruising along the surface at five or six miles an hour, filtering plankton from the water with enormous gills, specially adapted to work like strainers. A single shark can filter a volume of water equivalent to that found in a 150-foot long swimming pool every day. Remarkably, the huge sharks, which can weigh more than 3 tons, sometimes make spectacular leaps out of the water, crashing back into the waves with an enormous splash. Researchers are not sure why the great fish make the leaps, but it may be to remove parasites or to communicate with other sharks. Unfortunately, Basking sharks are under heavy pressure from fishing fleets. Their livers, which can account for up to one third of their body weight, produce a valuable oil used to lubricate engines and manufacture cosmetics. And their dorsal fins, which can be six feet high, are valued for soup. As a result of overfishing, Basking sharks are now believed to be extinct in some areas they once inhabited.

Great White Shark

One of the gentle Basking shark’s closest relatives has a very different reputation: the 10- to 20-foot Great White shark has been celebrated in books and movies as a ruthless man-eater. But scientists say the Great White, which lives in the warm seas of the world, has gotten a bad rap. Although Great Whites do attack people, the attacks are rarely fatal and the threat is exaggerated.

In fact, other kinds of sharks are responsible for more fatal attacks and, overall, more people are killed in the U.S. each year by dogs than have been killed by Great White sharks in the last 100 years. Still, Great Whites are prodigious hunters, able to tackle giant tuna and even sea lions and dolphins. After eating a large meal, however, a Great White can survive up to a month without another morsel. Like most sharks, Great Whites sometimes lose teeth in the process of hunting, but they don’t mind this: the teeth regrow within days. Over a lifetime, in fact, sharks may go through thousands of teeth.

Researchers believe Great Whites spend most of their 40-year lifespans hunting alone, but because the sharks are relatively rare, very little is known about their habits. Some researchers believe that the biggest Great Whites are rarely seen, because they retreat to the depths of the ocean. Other scientists believe that the big sharks, like some other species, change sex when they reach a certain size: males become females. The switch may ensure survival by allowing the largest, most experienced sharks to give birth to young.

Tiger Shark

Though Great Whites have gotten the man-eating reputation, the Tiger shark is the fish people should fear. The menacingly-striped torpedo has been responsible for more fatal attacks on humans than any other shark. But as THE SECRET WORLD OF SHARKS AND RAYS shows, Tiger sharks don’t discriminate when it comes to snacking: they will eat almost anything from sea turtles to tin cans. They also eat other sharks. In one case, in fact, snagging a Tiger allowed an angler to catch four sharks at one time: the fisherman caught a Tiger that had a Bull shark in its stomach, which had a Blacktip shark in its stomach, which in turn had a small Dogfish in its stomach! Like Great Whites, Tigers apparently live nomadic lives, roaming the warmer coastal seas. They are known to travel more than 60 miles a day. The Tiger apparently lives up to 40 years and can grow up to 16 feet. Its name comes from the dark stripes that decorate its back, though some Tigers lose their colors as they age. Female sharks produce up to 80 young at a time. Luckily, the Tiger isn’t generally considered a valuable food fish, so its numbers have remained strong.