Fish & Water - Sounds Wild
Salmon Sharks 2

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Salmon Sharks 2

A triangular dorsal fin breaks the cold, choppy waters of the north Pacific - it's a salmon shark. As the shark's grey fin emerges from the sea, a transmitter attached to the side sends a location signal to a satellite. Fish and Game biologists are tracking this shark to learn more about the movements of salmon sharks in and out of Alaska waters, and to identify differences between the migration patterns of male and female sharks.

This is a male, named Lawrence in honor of St. Lawrence Island in the Bering sea, near where he was caught and tagged in 2019. He's one of two tagged male salmon sharks biologists are monitoring - the second, Clark the shark was tagged in September of 2021. These transmitters can provide three years of location data if the batteries hold up.

Lawrence's tracks show repeat north-south visits between the Bering Sea and the central North Pacific. He swam 10,400 miles the first year and 12,400 miles in the second. Clark's first-year travels in fall 2021 are similar - he swam due south through the Bering Sea, crossed through the Aleutians and into the Pacific. In his first months he covered more than 5,000 miles, about 120 miles per day! In early December he was in the middle of the north pacific, about halfway between Oregon and Japan.