Great white sharks' migration more complex than once thought

Research led by marine ecologist Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute in Fallbrook, and partially funded by the Newport Beach's George T. Pfleger Foundation, suggests that the ocean's top feeder is a more complex, migratory creature than earlier believed, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Great whites "are not a coastal shark that comes out to the middle of the ocean. They are an ocean shark that comes to the coast,'' Domeier told the newspaper. "It is a complete flip-flop" from what shark experts had postulated.

Domeier and his team spent three years catching and tagging 22 great whites off Mexico's Guadalupe Island, a shark hot spot about 100 miles off the Mexican coast and 300 miles south of Los Angeles, The Times reported.

Domeier arranged a voyage with a National Geographic Channel television crew to track the sharks, which led them to a deep, biologically unproductive patch of ocean about 1,500 miles east of Kauai this past spring.

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Once there, the researchers found little food to support the famously voracious sharks. The only exceptions were purple and neon flying squids, The Times reported.

Also feeding in the area were sperm whales, which are known to feed in spawning areas for large squids. The tracking tags on the sharks also showed them making deep dives.

The great whites, Domeier said, had found a squid-based ecosystem with big enough prey to attract sperm whales.

Weather ended up cutting short the voyage, and Domeier said more research was needed to confirm what was happening.

Though great whites are believed to breed near the coast, his tags showed some females staying well out to sea year around, The Times reported.