A dog in Southland, New Zealand, found a tag from a great white shark that was being monitored in Australia. The tag had fallen off the shark after 150 days at sea and was tracked to a remote beach on the far western edge of the Catlins.
Kelsi Hayes, a resident of Tokanui, was walking her dog Quasi on the beach when the tag flew out of some seaweed that Quasi was chewing. Despite using a metal detector in previous searches, Hayes had no luck finding the tag until Quasi discovered it.
Shark Experience, a shark diving operator in Bluff, had encouraged locals to join the search after being informed by a research team in New South Wales that the tag had been tracked to the beach near Fortrose. Coincidentally, a team from Shark Experience arrived at the beach just as Quasi found the tag.
The tag came from a male great white shark that was nearly 3m long when it was tagged off One Mile Beach in Forster, Australia, in June. The tag surfaced about 2100km away, off the northern side of Rakiura/Stewart Island, in November. It then drifted at sea and washed ashore at the mouth of the Mataura River in the Fortrose area in December.
The tag, part of the New South Wales Government’s shark management program, contained data on depth, water temperature, and the shark’s location over the past 150 days. It was the 1000th tag to have been attached to a great white shark by the program. The tags are designed to eventually drop off the sharks and are monitored via GPS.
Shark Experience was delighted to be able to return the tag to Australia.
