Great White Sharks
I remember my favorite move as a child. It wasn’t a typical cartoon movie like most children love watching, I never liked those. My favorite movie was the American thriller Jaws. Most kids my age, and adults were terrified by Jaws but I was fascinated by the movie. I would sit and watch in awe. I couldn’t believe a fish could be so big and powerful. I wanted the shark to be my pet. Even to this day, 20 years later, my mother still jokes about how I loved to watch Jaws, but I was afraid of the movie Star Wars. She found it amusing that I wasn’t afraid of a movie that was based on a real animal that could quite possibly cause the damage that the great white shark did in real life. That was where my fascination with sharks started. The great white shark is probably the most known shark out of the entire species, but still so little is known about them.
Every year the Discovery Channel has there highly anticipated “Shark Week” where they broadcast shows all about sharks. Every year they always air a show with massive adult great white sharks jumping out of the ocean while they hunt seals. But out of all of the shows they never show any juvenile great whites. I can’t recall ever seeing any information on them and it made me wonder, where are the baby great white sharks? So little is known about great white sharks. “Even basic notions, such as how large they actually grow, how long they live, how many are out there, and where they go to breed and pup, remain a mystery” (Cillican, 2011) .
Recently off Port Stephens, New South Wales, a great white shark nursery was discovered. Scientists discovered the nursery from a YouTube video entitled “Great White Shark Hunters”. Even though the video shows the illegal hunting of great white shark pups, scientists gained a lot of knowledge from the video. “Australia listed the great white as protected in 1999; internationally it is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Red List for Threatened Species, and it was also banned for trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in 2004” (Cillican, 2011) . Because of the video, scientists have begun to research the area. They found that the nursery area consists of a 50 kilometer stretch of broken coastline between Seal Rocks and Stockton Beach. This location is perfect for a shark nursery because the nutrient-rich conditions of the area attract schools of Australian salmon, mulloway, mullet and snapper, which are the favored meals of juvenile great white sharks. Scientists from the CSIRO laboratories began tagging juvenile sharks in the area in 2007. “The team has fixed a satellite tag to the shark’s dorsal fin, which records the date and time, water temperature, depth and light levels” (Cillican, 2011) . Acoustic tags have also been surgically implanted into the shark’s abdomen. The tags transmit a unique number when the shark swims within 500 meters of an underwater acoustic listening station, which have been scattered throughout Australian waters. They have also started annual helicopter surveys of the nursery to estimate how many sharks migrate there.
“Conservation and study around this juvenile shark crèche is vital-knowledge from the nursery could help hint at the health of future adult populations” (Cillican, 2011) . The research taking place at and around the Port Stephens nursery is important in helping protect a species that many people probably never realized was endangered. About 120 sharks are killed every year due to the bay catch of commercial and recreational fishing. This is a crucial amount because great white sharks only give birth to 2-14 pups in a litter and only produce 4-6 litters in a lifetime.
Making people aware of this situation is the first step in conserving one of the ocean’s most powerful and most vulnerable creatures. Most powerful because they are one of the sea’s greatest hunters, and most vulnerable because their numbers are so few compared to other species of sharks. This type of research is a window into the great white shark’s world. The more we know about them, the more we as humans can do to make sure that our actions don’t impose on their habitats or threaten their well-being. Our actions impact everything that goes on in the ocean. Our responsibility with that type of power is the key to their survival.
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