Great White Shark

Great White Shark Hunting Strategies

            Great white sharks primarily eat fish, smaller sharks, turtles, dolphins, whale carcasses and pinnipeds such as seals and sea lions. Great whites have also been known to eat objects that they are unable to digest. In great white sharks above 3.41 meters (11 ft, 2 in) a diet consisting of a higher proportion of mammals has been observed. The Great White hunts differently from any other shark in the world. It will actually stick its head up out of the water. It is unknown why it does this because of its other senses. It can also sense electronic charges given off by muscles of find and mammals to track them down. Its sense of smell is also used. It can smell a drop of blood in 25 gallons of water. When chasing fish and other things it has been known to completely jump out of the water (breech). No other sharks do this either.

Chris Fallows/apexpredators.com

Video Great White Hunting Seal Target

Chris Fallows/apexpredators.com

Great White Shark Migration

Great white sharks live in almost all coastal and offshore waters which have a water temperature of between 54° to 75° Fahrenheit, with greater concentrations off the southern coasts of Australia , off South Africa , California , and Mexico ’s Isla Guadalupe and to a degree in the Central Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas . The densest known population is found around Dyer Island , South Africa where up to 31 different Great White sharks have been documented to be seen in one day. It can be also found in tropical waters like those of the Caribbean and has been recorded off Mauritius . It is a pelagic fish, but recorded or observed mostly in coastal waters in the presence of rich game like fur seals, sea lions, cetaceans, other sharks and large bony fish species. It is considered an open-ocean dweller and is recorded from the surface down to depths of 4,200 ft, but is most often found close to the surface. In a recent study great white sharks from California were shown to migrate to an area between Baja California and Hawaii , where they spend at least 100 days of the year before they migrate back to Baja. On the journey out, they swim slowly and dive to up to 3,000 ft. After they arrive, they change behavior and do short dives to about 1,000 ft for up to 10 minutes. It is still unknown why they migrate and what they do there; it might be seasonal feeding or possibly a mating area

Authored by Anthony DeRose

28 March 2007

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