A blue shark which had been tagged was reeled in by a longliner off the south east coast of Africa. What’s so interesting about this tagged shark is that is has broken the record for distance traveled by any shark recorded by the GameFish Tagging Program.

The previous record holder was held by a blue shark which was released off Kilcuda (VIC) and was later reeled in again in the Indian Ocean, and swam a remarkable 2,400 nautical miles.

This new blue shark broke that record with a distance of 5,073 nautical miles, having made a voyage across the Indian Ocean from the time it was first let go at Port MacDonnell (SA) some five years ago.

The blue shark was originally let go by Paul Williams, an Adelaide GFC member, off of Port MacDonnnell back on the 20th of May 2005. The shark was guessed to be about 18 pounds when it was first tagged. When the shark was recaptured, it weighed in at around 94 pounds.

In a related stories, Nikol Bay SFC boat Tourettes has been hard at work, tagging tiger sharks for the past year and eight months, in Western Australia waters. Kevin Deacon’s team has managed to tag some 33 tiger sharks in this time.

Sharks are rather difficult to tag, but recent advancements in technology, along with a bit of elbow grease, has yielded really good results, and we now have an accurate way to study these magnificent creatures.