‘Like a teenager with a learner’s licence’: Tagged Great White shark pops up in Abel Tasman
A 3.2m great white shark named Joe has turned up off D’Urville Island and the Abel Tasman area, marking the first time a tagged shark from an ongoing study has visited the region.
Researchers at the Sustainable Ocean Society have tagged 32 great whites across New Zealand waters since 2022, but Joe is the first to head into this area.
Oceanographer Dr Riley Elliott said Joe’s arrival offered a fresh window into great white shark movements.
“We haven’t had one ever pop up there before,” he said.
“They’re not often seen in that area, so it is interesting … every shark we tag, we learn more.“
Elliott said great white sharks undergo shifting diets as they mature, transitioning from fish and squid as juveniles to marine mammals as adults.
At 3.2m, and approximately 10 years of age, Joe was right at the boundary of that transition, he said.
“It’s often the most dangerous size, I would say, because they’re kind of like a teenager with a learner’s licence,” Elliott said.
“They’re still trying to figure it out, but that’s still a large animal – it’s a very capable predator.”
Elliott said he believed Joe had been attracted to the area due to high numbers of seals pupping in the waters off the Abel Tasman.
Joe arrived in the region following a vast journey. He originated in Australia, where he narrowly escaped death on a New South Wales smart drumline. Instead of being culled, he was fitted with an acoustic tag and released.
He then swam to Stewart Island, where Elliott attached a satellite tag, before Joe made a 700km trek south to the frigid waters of the Auckland and Campbell islands to feed on penguins and elephant seal pups over summer.
From there, Joe headed straight back up to the Tasman Sea, cruising past Sydney and up to the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef. He then turned around, swam down past Coffs Harbour and Newcastle, looped around Norfolk Island, and returned to Northland before making a rapid one-week journey down to the Abel Tasman National Park.
While Elliott noted that D’Urville Island was a well-known fishing spot with a “plethora of fish species” like tuna, locals have also reported an abundance of seal pups moving through the area.
“They don’t have mums and dads to teach them where to go,“ he said.
“They don’t have siblings to hang out with them to teach them where to go, so they’re relying on instinct.
“Maybe Joe is just really onto it. He’s actually just following around good food sources.”
Elliott said he would begin tagging more sharks off Rakiura Stewart Island in December, and was seeking donations from the public to help pay for the tags to be able to keep tracking the animals.
“The more people can support this work, the more we can track the sharks and can continue to learn about them,” he said.
To follow Joe’s and other great white sharks’ movements, or to sponsor a tag go to sustainableoceansociety.
By Andy Brew, Nelson Mail
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