Malibu Shark Snarks Authority Once Again—Sheds Data Tag Early

• Young White’s Behavior Supports Theory that Local Waters Are Great Place to Grow Up

BY ANNE SOBLE

Depending in part on one’s stance on wildlife captivity, the young great white shark that spent 11 days on display at the Monterey Bay Aquarium over the Labor Day holiday is either the luckiest or unluckiest shark to ever inhabit local waters.
When the white was reluctantly released in early September, after the shortest stay of any shark in MBA’s Outer Bay exhibit, the young female was fitted with a tracking device.
She was set free because she had eaten only once during her stay in captivity. The data tag was expected to provide information on her activities through winter and then pop off.
However, that tag popped free on the morning of Oct. 8, four months ahead of schedule. The device was recovered near San Miguel Island in the Santa Barbara Channel on Oct. 23.
According to Kasia Deuel at Monterey Bay Aquarium, the tag shows that “the shark remained in waters around the Channel Islands, where we released her on Sept. 7, and that she was doing well in the wild.”
The young shark was the fourth great white put on display at the aquarium. The 4 1/2-foot-long female weighed 55 1/2 pounds when she was originally caught in a seine net off Malibu by commercial fishers on Aug. 16.
Transported at a carefully guarded time from Malibu to MBA on Aug. 27, the prognosis for an at least several-month stay appeared positive when it was announced that the female shark had eaten on her third day in captivity.
That, however, turned out to be the only time the animal fed over the span of time she was on display. The aquarium’s animal care staff decided it “was best to return her to the ocean” immediately.
MBA had released the other three sharks that were formerly on display in the waters of Monterey Bay. But when this younger shark was set free, Ken Peterson, the chief spokesperson for the aquarium indicated, “This was the first shark released down south. Our animal care staff decided that since the latest shark was smaller and younger than the others, and hadn’t been eating regularly, it was best to release her closer to the warmer waters where young sharks are typically found. That spared her a long swim south on an empty stomach.”
But this shark was not about to follow any rules after release either. She was caught Sept. 11 by a commercial fisher working his nets in the area, and she was released the same day.
Described by the fisher as “very lively,” the shark was netted about 22 miles southeast from the point where she had been released four days earlier.
Although the aquarium did not issue an advance statement on the October tag drop, MBA subsequently indicated that the “data from the tag show normal swimming and diving patterns up to the moment of [the tag’s] release.”
When asked how the tag drop-off might have occurred, Deuel told the Malibu Surfside News that “we do not suspect a mortality.”
If the young white was not killed by a larger predator, or succumbed to illness, or other injury, it is likely that she is still in this area and will remain here until large enough to head south to warmer waters.
When the prior larger and older white shark that spent time at the aquarium was released, it swam south to Baja and the Sea of Cortez, where it stayed until its tag dropped off as scheduled.
After this year’s shark was set free in September, Peterson announced that renovations to the Outer Bay Exhibit slated for late 2009 will preclude another attempt to put a white on display until 2011.
In the interim, some shark watchers wonder if the young maverick will continue to stir the waters.