New satellite tracking technology developed by the European Space Agency for the study of sharks are now being tested on four tiger sharks that were caught and tagged in the Dutch Caribbean.
The new satellite tags, which records pressure—indicating the depth of the shark—temperature, light level and tilt to enable three-dimensional mapping, is smaller and more durable than existing tags, as well as being cheaper and more animal friendly.
The tiger sharks were tagged off the coast of Saba during an expedition organised by the Dutch Elasmobranch Society, the Saba Conservation Foundation and Nature Foundation Sint Maarten.
“It’s important to track these animals over an extended period of time, as their migratory patterns can be long and far. Ideally you want to track them for several years,” Irene Kingma of the Dutch Elasmobranch Society said.”The potential of the new technology used in these tags is amazing as it allows us to collect more data for a longer period of time.”
The new design draws less battery power, making the tag last up to five times longer than existing devices that repeatedly retransmit their information. The smaller and lighter tag can also hold more data. In fact, once the information has been uploaded to the satellite, the tag can clear its memory and start collecting new readings.
The results so far have been promising.
“This technology opens the door to brand new possibilities. Currently tiger sharks are observed infrequently and it is difficult to say where they are. We don’t know about their breeding grounds or where they go,” Tadzio Bervoets, director of the Nature Foundation Sint Maarten, said.