Great White Sharks Are Uncannily Attracted to These Specific Ocean Features

Majestic.

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 23 JUN 2018

Marine biologists studying the movements of adult female white sharks in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Ocean have discovered, to their surprise, that they prefer warm-water eddies—ocean whirlpools that spin clockwise north of the equator.

"We've decimated some open-ocean shark populations to a fraction of what they were 100 years ago. And yet we don't know the basics of their biology," says lead author Peter Gaube, a senior oceanographer at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory.

"If we know where those sharks, or turtles, or whales might be in the open ocean, then the fisheries can avoid them, and limit their bycatch."

Gaube investigates how ocean eddies, or whirlpools, influence the behavior of marine animals. A previous study found that loggerhead sea turtles also prefer the anticyclonic, or clockwise-spinning in the Northern Hemisphere, eddies. These features trap large amounts of water at the ocean's surface and are most often warm, clear, and low in nutrients.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/great-white-sharks-attracted-to-specific-ocean-regions-whirlpools