VIRGINIA KEY, Fla., June 23 (UPI) -- U.S. and Canadian scientists have used geographic profiling to determine the hunting patterns of white sharks living in waters off South Africa.
Geographic profiling is usually used in law enforcement to track a connected series of crimes. But the marine researchers used it to identify the sharks' hunting patterns, since they are rarely observed in the wild and have remained much of a mystery.
Neil Hammerschlag, a scientist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, who co-led the research, used geographic profiling to study predatory interactions between white sharks and Cape fur seals at Seal Island in False Bay, South Africa.
Hammerschlag and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and Texas State University collected data on 340 natural predatory attacks by the sharks and discovered the attacks seemed to take place at strategic locations that offered a balance of prey detection, capture rates and inter-shark competition.
"The study expands our knowledge of how large predators hunt and offers a new scientific reference for studying other predator-prey systems," Hammerschlag said. "Sharks are apex predators, so studies of shark hunting behavior are important for understanding their ecology and role in structuring marine communities."
The research is reported in the online edition of the Journal of Zoology and is to appear in a future print issue.
