Trinity Researchers Tag Basking Sharks in West Cork to Learn More About Ocean’s Second Largest Fish
13th May 2021
Trinity researchers prepare to tag a basking shark off the West Cork coast
Credit: TCD
Researchers from Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences were in West Cork earlier this month to tag some of the many basking sharks that have been frequenting our shores and learn more about the second largest fish in the world’s oceans.
Funded by the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland, Assistant Professor Nicholas Payne and PhD candidate Haley Dolton spent a week on the water with West Cork Charters in which they managed to apply tags to four basking sharks.
Waterford, Ireland / WLR
May 6, 2021 12:52 PM
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Natural Sciences have been tagging basking sharks in West Cork in a bid to learn more about ‘Ireland’s gentle giants’ some of which grow to 12 metres in length, which makes them the second-largest shark species in the world.
Assistant Professor Nick Payne and PhD candidate Haley Dolton have just returned from a week on the waves in which they managed to apply tags to four sharks.
These electronic tags accumulate data about the sharks’ behaviour and physiology as they cruise around the coast feeding on plankton.
Researchers deploy new tagging devices to endangered basking sharks off west Cork Project to help understand behaviour and physiology of Ireland’s gentle sea giants
about 4 hours ago
Prof Nick Payne and PhD researcher Haley Dolton from Trinity College Dublin’s school of natural sciences have returned from a week on the waves in which they managed to apply tags to four sharks
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have begun deploying a new form of tagging device on basking sharks off west Cork in a bid to learn more about the behaviour of the endangered species.
Known as Ireland’s gentle giants of the sea – some of which grow to 12 metres in length – the species is the second-largest shark in the world, but its conservation status was changed from vulnerable to endangered two years ago.