The population of white sharks that call the Central California coast their primary home is holding steady at about 300 animals and shows some signs of growth, a new long-term study of the species has shown.
The population of white sharks that call the Central California coast their primary home is holding steady at about 300 animals and shows some signs of growth, a new long-term study of the species has shown.
Between 2011 and 2018, researchers were able to identify hundreds of individual adult and subadult white sharks, which are not fully mature but are old enough to prey on marine mammals. They used that information to develop estimates of the sharks’ abundance.
“The finding, a result of eight years of photographing and identifying individual sharks in the group, is an important indicator of the overall health of the marine environment in which the sharks live,” said Taylor Chapple of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center and a co-author of the study.
White sharks, sometimes referred to as “great” white sharks, are apex predators, meaning they are the top animal of the food chain, preying on large marine mammals such as elephant seals, harbor seals and sea lions. As apex predators, they play an important role in the health of the marine ecosystem, said Chapple, who is an assistant professor in Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Read more at Oregon State University
Image: Researchers use a camera on a pole to document the unique dorsal fin markings of a white shark off the California coast. (Credit: Scot Anderson)
