great white DISCOVERY…
From Gansbaai to Indonesia: The astonishing 38,000km+ voyage of a misidentified white shark…
Project Hiu has made a groundbreaking discovery…
In 2012, a sub-adult female white shark was tagged off the coast of South Africa. After 4.5 years at liberty, the shark was caught by a fisher in Indonesia in 2016.This discovery went unknown… UNTIL NOW!
When we began to tag sharks in Indonesia, we also began offering rewards for tags returned to us. Without this initiative and the trust we have built with the local community, this tag would have remained in the hands of the fishermen and we might have never known about the great white shark that cross the ocean… with the battery dead before the shark even left South Africa, the only way to know of its oceanic journey, is retrieval of the tag…
The journey included stops in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Mozambique and Madagascar, with its final transmitted location approximately 1,000 km southeast of Madagascar in April 2014. During this time, she encountered a wide range of sea surface temperatures, ranging from 3.8 - 29 °C, swam at an average speed of 56 km per day and covered a cumulative distance of 37,178 km, measured as the straight-line distance between satellite transmissions.
Once the tag was given to Project Hiu, founder Madison Stewart & science officer Dr Chelsea Black began the process of tracking down the owners of the tag to figure out what type of shark it was and where it came from. This process went on for a month and proved more difficult than expected as we were convinced the tag came from a shark tagged in nearby waters of Australia, we were wrong.
Through previous connections in South Africa, we discovered what we didn’t think was possible, the tag came off a great white shark…
“This discovery expands the known range of white shark migrations, demonstrating their capacity for long-distance dispersal between vastly different ecological regions, from the temperate waters of South Africa to the tropical seas of Southeast Asia.”
After being caught on a long line, the fishers recovered the large shark, cut it into sections, and immediately returned to land where it was sold for 20 million Indonesian Rupiahs (apx 1,400 USD). They remember the capture well because of the large size of the shark, the tag on its dorsal fin and the amount of money they received.
This is the fourth successful return of a shark tag to Project Hiu from the fishing community, with two others highlighting the movements of tiger sharks from Australia to Indonesia.Establishing connections and building respect between conservationists and shark fishers forms a strong foundation for scientific advancement in the area.
Once learning that this tag was from a Great White, we immediately sat down with the captain & a crew member from the vessel responsible to gain insight into every detail of the capture. Despite it being a long time ago, the fishermen had vivid memories of this capture, after all, it’s not everyday you catch a Great White.
The fishing vessel has since retired from shark fishing and moved into fishing squid. Without our connection to Alison Towner, Great White shark expert based in South Africa… we may have never found the original team that tagged Alisha.
“Without the trusted working relationships built between Project Hiu, local fishers and the government, this discovery likely would have remained unknown”
- scientific team
An image of the actual shark tag that was returned to us.
