Green Marine is the first Monster Munch shark to report its position with other sharks reporting depth and temperature readings via satellite in recent days. Green Marine has moved just 10 miles between the 8thof August and 12thof August indicating that there is good feeding in the sea area North of Glengad. Amazingly this is exactly the same area Cailleach the Scottish tagged shark has taken up residence with both sharks undoubtedly passing each other and feeding in close proximity throughout recent days. See the google map below for a chart of the sharks reported movements to date.
The Fastloc Tags deployed by the monster munch team are proving less effective in relaying live position data than the Scottish counterparts deployed Spot 5 tags but it is hoped that once the Fastloc tags have ‘poped off’ their true value will be shown. All tags developments in the marine environment are compromises and the Fastloc tags/ Spot tags are no different. MK 10 Fastloc enabled tags record behavioural information such as depth and temperature readings as well as positions withGPS accuracy, the Spot5 tags relay position data only. It is hoped that once the Monster Munch tags have ‘poped off’ the data recovered via satellite will allow the reconstruction of a complete 3Dimentional shark track as opposed to the 2D surface only live track of the Spot 5 tag. In turn these findings may enable researchers to delve deeper into the behavioural characteristics of the sharks behaviour and possibly answer some of the most elusive marine biology questions of the generation. For now it is great to sit back and wait for the next instalment.