Word: shark
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This time Kim Holland, director of the shark lab, suggested a more judicious approach: first figure out how the sharks actually behave. If they keep to a small territory, a locally targeted eradication program could reduce the danger. But if they have no territorial allegiance, an aggressive animal might kill and disappear, never to return, and slaughtering the sharks that remained might not help...
With funding from the federal Sea Grant Program and help from students, including Lowe and Meyer, Holland began hooking tiger sharks off Waikiki Beach. Smaller specimens get old-fashioned tags; if a tagged shark is recaptured, the scientists know that it has returned to the same spot at least once...
...Sharks that are at least 10 ft. long get a 6-in.-long cylindrical beeper deposited inside an incision in the belly. Every time the shark nears an acoustic receiver anchored on the ocean floor, it leaves a record of its visit. Based both on these records and on open-ocean shark chases, Holland has come to several conclusions. "First," he says, "we've established that tiger sharks do have home ranges." Those ranges, however, are huge: Holland's crew has tracked sharks all the way to Molokai, 25 miles away...
Moreover, the sharks patrol these ranges randomly. They may return to a given spot twice in one week, then not again for months. "It's clear," says Holland, "that you can't significantly reduce the local shark population by fishing for a limited time in a single area. You'd have to reduce the general population to have any effect--and that's not acceptable anymore...
...equipped tigers have revealed that they dive much deeper than anyone had suspected--as far down as 1,000 ft. and back within 15 min.--and that they can swim in an absolutely straight line for miles at a time. "Every time you get a chance to follow a shark around in its natural environment," marvels Holland, "you get a new, incredible insight...