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Australian sharks to be tracked at any time

Xinhua, January 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The exact location of 40 Australian sharks will soon be known at any time of the day.

In an Australian first, scientists will be given greater access than ever before due to the shark tagging and research operations of OCEARCH Ocean Research.

Tiger sharks tagging expeditions will be carried out in Western Australia and Queensland, with 20 sharks to be tagged with SPOT tags, which allow monitoring of the animals 24 hours a day.

While it is believed the technology has been used on Australian juvenile sharks in the past, this technology is understood to have never been tested on mature adults.

In an exciting development for amateur marine biologists, the tracking data will be freely available online to the public.

The research is carried out by local scientists with the OCEARCH vessel and its crew in Australia to provide the capacity to catch the sharks.

Scientists from Japan, Argentina and the United States will join Australian researchers from Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.

Researching conservation and behavior, the scientists hope to learn more about the creature to help increase safety for swimmers and surfers.

The OCEARCH expedition was a "great opportunity" to advance shark research, according to James Cook University's Dr. Adam Barnett.

"We have the chance to tag more tiger sharks with OCEARCH satellite technology over a period of a few weeks than our team has in the past 14 years in Queensland waters," Dr. Barnett told Fairfax Media on Wednesday. Endi