Community Corner
Great White Sharks Nearby? There's an app for That
"Expedition White Shark" app allows users to track where great white sharks are in the Pacific Ocean.
It's no secret that great white sharks have swam through Hermosa Beach waters, but now iPhone users can track the sharks' every move in an app.
The Marine Conservation Science Institute this month launched a new iPhone and iPad app called Expedition White Shark.
"The app will allow you to receive live tracking data for the tagged great white sharks at the same time as research scientists," according to the app's website.
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While the app follows only tagged sharks, research from UC Davis and Stanford University last year shows about 219 adult and sub-adult white sharks live in the U.S. region of the Pacific Ocean.
"This low number was a real surprise," said UC Davis doctoral student and the study's lead author Taylor Chapple in a statement following the release of the research.
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"It’s lower than we expected, and also substantially smaller than populations of other large marine predators, such as killer whales and polar bears," he said. "However, this estimate only represents a single point in time; further research will tell us if this number represents a healthy, viable population, or one critically in danger of collapse, or something in between."
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