Select Page

Back

Tiger shark feeding follows by satellite tag

Sep 9, 2016

Researchers from James Cook University fitted more than 10 tiger sharks and 10 green sea turtles with satellite tags at Raine Island over a five year period to better understand tiger shark movements.

Know as the largest breeding in the world Raine Island hosts a large number of green sea turtles.  Satellite data found tiger shark more often around the island than further offshore. Tiger sharks are lazy when it comes to feeding, with most preferring to scavenge rather than actively hunt, they prefer scavenging on dead or weak turtles.

The Argos tags shows that they are spending a lot of time patrolling on the surface around Raine Island reefs. Tiger sharks are opportunistic they are going there because there is lots of prey to feed which exert less energy. Dr. Barnett conclusion is that “Predators are normally lazy, if they can get a free feed without having to expend energy to catch it”.