Posted at 6:02 p.m., Friday, May 12, 2006
Rough seas delay retrieval of great white's transmitter
Advertiser Staff
Researchers are waiting for better wind and sea conditions before attempting to retrieve a satellite transmitter that was shed by a great white shark in waters near the windward coast of North Kohala on April 30.The transmitter tag from a 13-foot male shark has drifted on the surface from the Big Island to a point about 70 miles south of O'ahu, and researchers hoped to recover in the next couple of days, before it runs out of power and stops transmitting.
The shark traveled to Hawai'i from the Baja Peninsula, and Michael Domeier of the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research in Oceanside, Calif., said he hopes to recover valuable data from the gadget that will help scientists understand the shark's 2,500-mile journey.
The great white that traveled to the Big Island is one of a dozen that were tagged in December at Guadalupe Island off Baja, about 220 miles south of San Diego. The tag stopped transmitting for a time last week, and Domeier believed it washed ashore on the Hamakua Coast. The tag resumed transmitting after it apparently washed back out to sea, drifting toward Maui before veering north toward O'ahu.
