A new study involving UQ estimates around 200 to 252 white sharks have babies each year.
A new study involving UQ estimates around 200 to 252 white sharks have babies each year. A study on the vulnerable white shark has shown that approximately 206 to 252 sharks breed on Australia's east coast each year. The joint study involving The University of Queensland, NSW Department of Primary Industries and Stellenbosch University in South Africa has used genomics to estimate the yearly number of "effective breeders" in the white shark population. UQ PhD candidate in the Molecular Fisheries Laboratory, Dani Davenport , said "effective breeders? contributed offspring to the population each year. "Effective breeders are like the 'genetic vault' that carry the genes of the population and pass them down to the next generation,' Ms Davenport said. Ms Davenport said it is difficult to determine if protections applied to the white shark in Australia have been working, as monitoring populations of animals underwater is challenging, and particularly so for white shark, which are difficult to find, catch and handle. "However, the 'SMART' drumline established by NSW DPI as part of the NSW Government's 'Shark Management Strategy' provided a valuable source of material for genomic analyses from sharks caught as part of the program.' When sharks are caught on SMART-drumlines they are measured, sampled for DNA and then tagged with a tracking device before being released back, alive, to their ocean environment. Ms Davenport said that monitoring the "effective breeding population size?
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