Meet Poseidon, an immature Great White Shark who loves the warm waters of Mossel Bay
Ocearch’s tracking technology allows researchers to monitor sharks movements throughout the world’s oceans, providing valuable insight into their behavior and their range.
Each shark is tagged with a tracking device that is inserted through their dorsal fin, and whenever they break the surface of the water, a signal is transmitted to a satellite. The satellite then sends back an estimated location of the shark.
Each of these ‘pings’ give researchers an accurate, real time location of a particular shark, allowing them to collect data about each individual.
During the tagging process, tests are done on the shark which determines their species, age, sex, weight, length and stage of life. From the data collected a profile is then setup for the shark on Ocearch’s official tracking website.
Researchers are then able glean the extent of the shark’s territory, the distance they have covered since their tagging and monitor their behavior.
This also allows members of the public to observe each shark’s movements and possibly dive in the area it occupies, all the while knowing a bit of the animal’s history.
Expectedly, each shark displays their own particular habits, which coastlines they prefer and the depth at which the like to swim. It’s interesting to follow a particular individual and see what they get up to, how much distance they cover in comparison to other sharks and whether they prefer shallow or deep waters.
Profile: Poseidon
Photo credit: www.ocearch.org.
Species: Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)
Gender: Male
Weight: 301 kg
Length: 2.7 metres
Stage of Life: Immature
Total distance covered: 6306.648 miles
Tag Location: Mossel Bay
A lover of the coast, Poseidon has split time between the warmer waters off the coast of Mozambique and the far cooler Atlantic waters of the Western Cape in South Africa since being tagged by Ocearch in Mossell Bay in 2012.
Having outgrown the bustling (and not to mention cold) scene of False Bay, Poseidon now prefers the far more laidback approach to life in the Indian Ocean, to which, it seems he emigrated in late 2013.
He finds the tropical climate on Africa’s east coast far more accommodating to his eccentric behavior and is pleased to have escaped the elitist (and some would say snobbish) territory of the Western Cape, a place where much of his family still reside.
Far from convincing his pals to join him on the warmer side of the continent, he has resigned himself to enter a new, more accepting, almost bohemian social circle, believing his move to be the wisest life decision since he has made since forgoing the manic sardine run of 2014.
That being said, he still maintains contact with his industrious clan of mates in the west, many of who relish the influx of shark cage diving tourists to his home-coast of False Bay but has yet to commit to what would be a momentous homecoming.
Perhaps, with a little encouragement from his friends, Poseidon will one day be convinced of the value of great white shark tours to conservation, and return to the area for the year round shark cage diving party in Cape Town.
Credit: All data found on www.ocearch.org.
