Gallery: Spending 15 Minutes With a Great White Shark on a Boat Deck
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__TEST AND COLLECT: 15 MIN__ | Blood (drawn from the caudal vein, near the tail) reveals what the shark has recently eaten, plus contaminants and stress levels. Depending on the animal’s gender, scientists either ultrasound or physically examine the reproductive organs. They also collect parasites and a dime-sized piece of fin to extract DNA.
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__PROTECT THE PUBLIC: 10 MIN__ | Researchers cut open the shark’s abdomen and insert a transmitter that emits a high-frequency tone. Greg Skomal, senior scientist on Ocearch’s 2013 Cape Cod expedition, is working on a notification system to alert public officials when an Ocearch shark surfaces near swimming beaches.
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__TRACK TRAVELS: 7 MIN__ | After flipping the shark onto its belly, crewmembers bolt a TV-remote-sized satellite-positioning tag to its dorsal fin. The next time the shark pokes its fin above the surface of the water, satellites will be able to locate it to within about half a mile. The tag also relays water temperature.
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__CHART MOTION: 3 MIN__ | Lower on the dorsal fin, researchers drill another hole and attach an accelerometer. The cable ties holding it on will degrade in the saltwater and fall off, and the team will recover the sensor. Skomal calls it the shark’s black box—it tracks fine movements, logging up to 90,000 data points an hour.
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__BIOPSY: 1 MIN__ | Researchers use a needle to take a small sample of muscle from the shark’s back. The sample can tell scientists what food the animal has been eating over a longer period of time than the blood sample.
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__I.D. AND RELEASE: 0.5 MIN__ | Two sensors go into the biopsy hole: a permanent ID tag followed by a satellite transmitter to track water temperature, light levels, and the shark’s depth. Next, a crewmember wakes the shark by wagging its tail. Then they let it go. Stress tests suggest that the shark recovers in about two hours.
