Thread by @MontereyAq

If you're scrolling about and looking for a pick-me-up, we've got a heartwarming shark science story to share ❤️🦈📜

Once upon a time and to this very day, studying wildlife is tough stuff. And studying white sharks is extra tough because of two fundamental problems: White sharks live in the ocean, and wireless signals hate saltwater. It's called the Pesky Pisces Pinging Problem™.

Ok no it's not actually called that but that was fun to type

Anyway, with turtles and whales that surface to breathe, tracking tags can talk to satellites when the animal comes up for air, allowing you to follow them in near real-time. But since sharks are fish, they won’t necessarily ever break the surface for your tag to transmit data...

A simple fix in theory: Get your tag to the surface! Our white shark research team uses various Pop-Up Archival Tags (PATs) that jettison from the shark, break the surface and upload a summary of the data to satellites. Nice!

But the tag itself is FULL of fine-scale, minute by minute data of what the shark was up to. We definitely want those tags back, and if they pop up near the coast, it's a mad scramble to get to them before their battery dies.

In the event we don't get the tag back before it goes quiet—and the ocean is a huge place—there's always the "put your address and phone number on it and hope for the best" method. The tags are super hardy, so if and when someone finds them, those data in a bottle will be there.

Now, some of our tags go through a shell of a lot to learn more about white sharks. Our "Fitbits For Sharks" are designed to record metabolic, feeding and swimming activity from *inside* the belly of the beast. Behold, the Blubber Burrito:

One such blubberrito tags was swallowed by Chippy the white shark, one of many regular visitors to the coast that our researchers have identified from their unique markings:

White sharks are a bit like owls, in that after consuming a big meal, they eventually regurgitate the big stuff—bones, skulls and our tags. Once un-Jonah'd, the tag floats to the surface and lets us know to come get it.

Chippy carried the tag for a month, giving us precious insight into the daily life of a white shark. The shark coughed up the data somewhere in cool Californian waters, but the tag had lost its antenna. Unable to tell us where it was, Chippy’s tag was lost at sea—until...

[a brief intermocean, as this thread was getting short on puns]

Hawaii is a long way from California at a human scale, but ocean currents and migrating species connect the two. Some tagged white sharks swim there and back, offshoots from a hot spot of white sharkdom: The White Shark Café, halfway between both shores:

Traveling in the slipstream of its study species, Chippy's tag bobbed its merry way across the Pacific in its best planktonic impression until it washed up on a beach near Hilo, Hawaii. There, Chippy's tag waited.

By this time, it had been more than a year since we'd heard from Chippy's tag. But as luck, chance and fate would have it, the beach Chippy's tag had found was being surveyed by 8-year old explorer Ka’eo Paradis. Shore enough, it was Ka'eo that discovered Chippy's treasure.

Ka'eo brought the tag to his grandmother Patricia Kaleiwahea, who immediately recognized the tag's potential. They found our shark team's contact info buried beneath the biology bound to the tag. 15 months later, Chippy's tag was ready to tell the world its secrets!

For all the media surrounding white sharks, we know very, very little about their lives. And the more we learn, the more we realize the popular stories need updating. Our sharky Fitbits are showing us that white sharks feed infrequently. Chippy ate just twice in a month.

Chippy's tag was regurgitated along the shore, which also indicates white sharks may be doing most of their feeding in the cold, productive waters off of our coast, bulking up their liver's fat stores before migrating to a Burning Man of sorts at the White Shark Café.

(That's why we call it the White Shark Café: Seems like a good place to meet someone over a bite)

But the story gets even better. After mailing the tag to us, Ka'eo and his grandmother followed Chippy's data over to the Aquarium to meet with our shark science team! Senior research scientist and white shark expert Dr. Sal Jorgensen gave them the grand tour!

Yessss!! 😭😭😭

There are still so many questions that we have yet to answer about white sharks. And thanks to future Shark Professor Emeritus Extraordinaire Dr. Ka'eo Paradis, one piece of the white shark picture got a bit clearer. Thanks Ka'eo! We can't wait to work for you one day!

Tl;dr: Shark science doesn't always kid around—but when it does, it's pretty jawesome mbayaq.co/2NvB57M

PS: Yes you read that right Ka'eo's shirt says "Muggle" and he was sporting all Ravenclaw gear 😭