Young White Shark Drops By Malibu for
Six-Day Visit
• Juvenile Male Placed in Point Dume
Holding Pen Decided the Menu Wasn’t to His Liking
A juvenile white shark that was
accidentally caught by a commercial fisherman last Tuesday
spent six days in the Monterey Bay Aquarium holding pen
at Paradise Cove before being released into the ocean on
Sunday.
The shark, a young-of-the-year
shark—that’s a shark less than 12 months
old—measured four-foot, nine inches in length.
First described by an MBA spokesperson
as navigating well in the pen, the shark was offered
food—primarily mackerel caught locally by the field team.
White sharks this age are fisheaters.
Ken Peterson of MBA said the staff usually
makes a decision on whether to tag and release a shark from the
pen, or bring it to Monterey as a candidate for temporary
exhibit, within two to three weeks of the time it is put in the
pen.
But this shark was not swimming as well in
confinement as the MBA staff wanted, and hadn’t eaten any
of the fish put out for him. Even though it was possible the
shark was eating schools of baitfish swimming in the pen, they
could not quantify his intake.
Peterson said, “The evaluation of the
folks in the field, supported by our white shark team in
Monterey and our veterinarian, was it was in the best
interests of the animal to tag him and release him back to the
wild.”
In addition to the young male released last
weekend, MBA research colleagues have field-tagged and
released three other juvenile white sharks since the Memorial
Day weekend.
MBA began the white shark field research
program in 2002 and brought three animals to the aquarium for
periods up to six months in 2004, 2006 and 2007. All three were
tagged and returned to the wild.
The tag on the most recent release, in
February of this year, just popped off about halfway up the Sea
of Cortez. The data from the tag is being analyzed for
information about depths and water temperatures during the
shark’s travels.
A second tag, that reports only his
approximate position, is still on the shark and will transmit
for another couple of months until the battery runs out.
Scientists at the aquarium indicate a
preference for calling the animals white sharks rather than use
the popular term great white shark in order to downplay the
sensationalism of the commercial demonization of the species.
