Tagged mako shark near Island

Written by:
Hans Kruit, 8 December 2013

A satellite tagged mako shark has made a visit to Bermudian waters.

Travelling a distance around 4,400 miles, the young female mako — called ‘GHOF1’, an abbreviation for Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation — was less than 30 miles offshore as of midnight last night.

After being caught, satellite tagged and released just over five months ago off Ocean City, Maryland, GHOF1 is tracked by the Nova Southeastern University’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) throughout her journey.

GHOF1 is among 16 mako sharks tagged with special satellite-linked devices allowing GHRI researchers to monitor their movements.

“GHOF1, like all of mako sharks we’ve tracked, are truly international sharks, visiting the waters of several countries as they explore the oceans while covering enormous distances,” said Mahmood Shivji, director of the institute’s Save Our Seas Shark Research Center at NSU.

“What we are also learning is that these sharks do not roam randomly, but exhibit a finely tuned sense of place. Longer term tracking will tell us if they are also exhibiting a sense of time as well as place.”

NSU’s Guy Harvey Research Institute began tagging mako sharks in 2009 to study their migratory patterns and now undertakes expeditions worldwide to study them. The school’s marine experts have tagged mako sharks as far away as Mexico and New Zealand. In addition to makos they have also tracked tiger, oceanic white tip and sand tiger sharks, as well as blue marlin.

Given the high fishing pressure on makos for their meat and fins, this species is showing declining population trends in parts of its range, which has resulted in the species being listed as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

Hans
source: The Royal Gazette