An estimated 17 foot Great White shark has been tagged off Albany’s coast. Due to her massive size, the beautiful girl has been given the name Joan of Sharks. She is estimated to weigh in at 1.6 tonnes (3,200 lbs).
Recently a distressed whale calf became beached close to shore and it is believed Joan came to grab a bite to eat. After closing the beach the state government’s shark monitoring network immediately sent a team to the location. Department of Fisheries employee Mark Kleeman explained what happened next.
“In that photo, the shark is upside down, which induces a state called tonic immobility,” he said. “In a sense, the shark basically goes to sleep, which enables our technical officers to do a small surgical procedure to implant an acoustic tag inside the shark’s gut cavity.”
Rolling the shark on its back creates a state of tonic immobility, preventing the shark from moving. This allows the team to take tissue and blood samples, as well implant or tag the shark. After which the shark is rolled over and “In this instance, the shark came almost instantaneously back to life.” Adding “So she was quickly released, and she swam off very strongly.”
Related: Joan of Sharks is being tracked, we just can’t see it live
The tagged implanted will ping and allow researchers to track her movements. “For the next ten years, we’ll be able to keep a track of her movements, which is going to open up a whole new world. We’ll have a better understanding of the large-scale movements of white sharks.”
Mark also said a shark of this size is “potentially a world first”.
