The same shark was recorded in Marine Dynamics Gansbaai database in July 2012 at Dyer Island- still with the faint markings of her attempted SPOT tag visible on her fin. Now in April 2015, her markings have disappeared completely. She was re named ‘Ingrid’ after a Marine Dynamics volunteer- without realizing this was in fact ‘Charlize’ back in 2013!
The Marine Dynamics team are happy to report that this shark has been recorded in their Gansbaai database at the beginning of summer and again in early autumn each year since 2012, but interestingly not before. It may be possible with her growth this shark changed her forging preference to visiting Gansbaai more- or that the trauma endured in Mossel Bay put her off visiting there! Like Gansbaai, Mossel bay has an array of underwater receivers which detect the presence of radio tagged sharks. It could also be she only responded to cage diving vessels at a certain size.
Nonetheless, she is a very healthy large female these days, the team estimate her now at 4.2m TL. Her almost docile behavior makes her very distinctive, and quite the popular character with the crew and divers. This is just another illustration of how incredibly robust the white shark is as a species, and also highlights the rapid growth of white shark females between 3.5-4.5m- as they change from teenagers to young women 🙂
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