Lydia’s coming

Isn’t she gorgeous, every time you go into the ocean you are pretty close to one of her extended family. God knows why they have to have such a hysterical air to the story. They tagged one a few years ago that crossed the Atlantic SAfrica to S America.

Fantastic creatures

Seems like a non-story to promote tracking tech? However, I’m not a surfer/expert/shark-tagger.

Like PF says though, fantastic creatures.

19,000 miles in the last year 😯

that is a fantastic picture in the link (i love great whites 😀

She’s lovely

10000 miles off the cornish coast…I think they mean 1000 miles !

bit scarred here in London…will I be okay ?

Just make sure you go in the water with other people.. If there is one other person your chances of getting bitten are halved. Also you are probably more likely to win the lottery than get bitten by a shark.
I remember paddling for a surf out at a beach near Byron bay in Australia and seeing a 6ft tiger shark swimming through a wave just before it broke. That momentary panic is odd. There were 30 or so people in the water so just carried on paddling out. There’s loads of sharks in the UK and you just don’t usually see them. I’ve also hooked into a large thresher shark (maybe 8ft) a mile off shore of Tenby… It really was one that was always going to get away.

She’s in a fish market in Portugal.

She’s in the room with me now! I’m in real trouble if I call the wife a shark….. or anything else!

People can thank their favourite deity that Megalodon is extinct.
All sharks are teh awesumz, though.

Since then she has swam 19,000 miles and in the past three days alone has travelled 380 miles and is now near the mid-Atlantic ridge.

Swam? Swam? it’s SWUM, past participle, innit.
Or is my English hopelessly snafu’d?

Think you mean swimmed. 380 miles in 3 days, I wonder if they swam in their sleep.

Great whites rely on movement to breathe so they don’t sit still to sleep.

No white shark has ever crossed west to east or east to west.

Surely a bollox statement – or at the very least super simplified. Unless you have tracked every shark that ever lived throughout time what you actually mean is “no tracked white shark has ever crossed west to east or east to west”

Agree, awesome looking beasts, but one I’d rather watch from a cliff than (knowingly) swimming in the water with!

Great whites rely on movement to breathe so they don’t sit still to sleep

Isn’t that a mixed up truth, they rely on moving water to breath so need to be where there’s a good current.

Great whites rely on movement to breathe so they don’t sit still to sleep
Isn’t that a mixed up truth, they rely on moving water to breath so need to be where there’s a good current.

If require a flow of water from front to back across their gills to breath, then they must always be swimming. Even if they are not moving “over the ground” they must be moving “through the water”. Like air speed and ground speed for an aircraft.

Treadmill?

She’s 1000 miles off the coast… She’s done 380 miles in the last 3 days, an average of 52 a day in the last year, how can she reach Cornwall in 2 days?

If require a flow of water from front to back across their gills to breath, then they must always be swimming. Even if they are not moving “over the ground” they must be moving “through the water”. Like air speed and ground speed for an aircraft.

Had a quick look as thought I read somewhere it wasn’t true. Seems they’re not sure but there is evidence of Ram Breathing Sharks lying in underwater caves where the water passes through with higher O2 so yes it’s not quite accurate. But if there’s no such places available they believe they close down all but the autonomic swimming part that is controlled but the spinal cord.

There was a news story a over here (Sydney) last week about 15 adult male bull sharks that were “patrolling” Sydney harbour during the Australia day long weekend – saw the story just before going stand-up paddle boarding on Balmoral beach, which is directly opposite the mouth of the harbour.

I surf at bondi pretty regularly, but I have to admit – after hearing that story I was pretty focused on staying upright on the board (rather than flailing about in the water, as is my usual style).

I’m not a surfer. I’m not a even a very good swimmer.
I will go into the water at Black Rock sands and Barmouth beach on that single day when the water goes above freezing (roughly 4 days in August).
There is no way I would go in for a dip or whatever anywhere in the world with the chance of being lunch for Lydia or her cousins.

This is a sand tiger shark

One, about 12′ long, swam/swum/swimmed past me close enough to touch. Never having seen so many teeth in one place before, I resisted the tempatation

Jumping off a wooden dock on a small island Caye in Belize 2 years ago and generally messing around in the lovely turquoise water,2 minutes after getting out a massive bull shark jumps out of same swimming spot chasing a ray.

That’s such bad reporting!

I remember looking beneath me at Byron bay and seeing the outline of some kind of small shark passing by below. Quite spooky.

It’s a shame we can’t track the tagged shark online. Be interesting seeing where it was in the world.

15ft long?
Well at least I won’t need a bigger boat.

The need to keep swimming is not directly related to water flow over the gills. Sharks and rays are elasmobranchs meaning they don’t have swim bladders like more advanced fish. If sharks and rays don’t have forward motion they sink and then drown. Many sharks and rays are able to sit motionless on the bottom in shallow water (grey nurse sharks being an example), so they don’t need the movement of water over their gills any more than a fish with a swim bladder.

Great white distribution map for coastal regions.

Well, Lydia has successfully crossed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge! She’s the first recorded Great White to do so.
However, there are Great Whites in the Med, and have been for ages, which rather begs the question, how did they get there?
Have they been crossing the Atlantic all this time, we just didn’t know it? Or do they keep criss-crossing just for a change of scenery?

Lol @ JoeG

Most of those 10 are killed in Western Australia, so there’s a real political element to shark attacks over here now, with drum lines being placed out to catch and destroy/relocate the ones that have been snared (if the’yre lucky enough to be alive after being forced to stay still for a while)It’s all a bit sad.

I fall on the side of “it’s their turf” so if you go in, it’s at your own risk and don’t ask for them to be destroyed.

Cows though, leaving their pats on the bridleways, that stuff’s hellish to clean off a bike once it’s dried, destroy them all 😉