Liberty, named for the famous New York City statue, wore a camera tag to show researchers where hundreds of other young sharks grow up right next to the Big Apple.
The beachgoers who throng the sand of Long Island, New York, might be surprised to learn they aren’t the only ones who find these temperate waters the perfect place to swim and picnic..figure out how to feed, navigate, and evade predators in what researchers now believe to be the North Atlantic’s primary—and probably only—great white shark nursery.
Shark scientists have posited the existence of a white shark nursery off Long Island since the mid-1980s, Winton says, but only in recent years has hard data confirmed its existence. “I can’t believe how emotional I got,” she says. “She was so beautiful, like a perfect mini version of an adult white shark.”Several research institutions and agencies have conducted annual expeditions using acoustic and satellite tags to follow the movements of Long Island’s young sharks.
Her movements also confirmed the researchers’ theory that baby sharks, not yet able to regulate their body temperature, prefer warmer temperatures, staying in the range of 70 degrees Fahrenheit as much as possible. That’s why female sharks don’t give birth until they reach a length of 15 feet or more, at which point they’re at least 30 years old. While pregnant, females continue to produce unfertilized eggs, which becomes food for their pups in utero.“Female white sharks carry around all these very big babies for as long as they do to make sure they're ready to rock as soon as they’re born,” Winton says.
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