Here Kitty, Here Kitty

The Monterey Bay Aquarium tracks a white shark from Monterey to Baja, thanks to a pop-tag and GPS.

Monday, August 25, 2008

When commercial fishermen unintentionally catch a great white shark in their nets, it’s John O'Sullivan of the Monterey Bay Aquarium that gets the assignment to retrieve it. O'Sullivan may have the best job on the planet. As the aquarium's curator of field operations (call him the collector), he's sent to find exotic species for the Aquarium exhibits, to pick up the occasional errant white sharks, and even to re-locate lost shark tags the size of cell phones after their anticipated release. Thus far the Monterey Bay Aquarium has successfully kept a white shark in captivity for 162 days, the longest any white shark has ever been domesticated. It’s all part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s ambitious program to study the white shark, having successfully tagged and tracked 12 juveniles and 143 adults. A number of them have been exhibited. It’s been good for science, and good for aquarium attendance, too. In this video, a CBS TV news journalist in San Diego joins O'Sullivan and Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, who are on the quest in Baja to find a shark pop- tag that automatically disconnected from a juvenile shark — after five months of international travels. The shark swam about 40 miles per day. http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.php?startID=136069&cat=undefined http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/whiteshark.asp