Small White Shark Population Continues to Thrive in the Coast of Central California natureworldnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from natureworldnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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IMAGE: Researchers use a camera on a pole to document the unique dorsal fin markings of a white shark off the California coast. view more
Credit: Scot Anderson
NEWPORT, Ore. - The population of white sharks that call the Central California coast their primary home is holding steady at about 300 animals and shows some signs of growth, a new long-term study of the species has shown.
Between 2011 and 2018, researchers were able to identify hundreds of individual adult and subadult white sharks, which are not fully mature but are old enough to prey on marine mammals. They used that information to develop estimates of the sharks abundance.
Counting on Seals
By Michael Lucibella,
Photo Credit: Kaitlin Macdonald
The 2020 seal team field crew. From left to right, Kaitlin Macdonald, Parker Levinson and Will McDonald.
Fewer researchers and support staff traveled to Antarctica in 2020 to reduce the risk of introducing the virus to the continent. One of the few science teams that did go is working on the long-term study of Weddell seals in McMurdo Sound. We re trying to understand how things mothers do for their offspring might help those pups do better or do worse later in life, said Jay Rotella, an ecologist at Montana State University and principal investigator on the project.