Image: Tagging of Pacific Predators - TOPP
Trackers on great white sharks in the Pacific reveal that sharks gather in a remote location every year near the mid-point between San Diego and Hawaii.
For years, scientists from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station and the Monterey Bay Aquarium used electronic tags to track the sharks along the California coast. Sharks would feed on seals and sea lions in the coastal waters near San Francisco. For unknown reasons, the sharks would leave these lucrative feeding ground for a section of ocean roughly the size of Colorado. The sharks would congregate in what was thought to be a food desert. But why? What would cause a shark with a voracious appetite to travel to a random location in the middle of the Pacific dubbed the ‘White Shark Café’?
Why do people move around, and how might those needs be similar to those of the great white? Learn more about the White Shark Café using the links below.
Resources:
MBARI: Researchers describe abundant marine life at the “White Shark Café”
Schmidt Ocean Institute: Voyage to the White Shark Café
NPR: Great White Sharks Have a Secret ‘Café’ and They Lead Scientists Right To It
LiveScience: Great White Sharks Gather in Droves in the Middle of Nowhere, But Why?
TOPP: Tagging of Pacific Predators
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