Researchers use underwater robot to better understand basking sharks in Scotland
Written by News on 06/08/2019
The behaviour of one of the world’s most elusive fish has been recorded using an underwater robot off the coast of northwest Scotland, Sky News can reveal.
Basking sharks, which can grow up up to 9m (30ft) long and feed on microscopic sea plankton, return to the Inner Hebrides every summer.
But because the fish spend limited time at the water’s surface, little is known about what they do when they come back to the area.
Dr Matthew Witt from the University of Exeter told Sky News: “For several years, we’ve been gathering information about how they move, where they go.
“But we’ve never really understood whether they find mates, whether they are eating and how they might socialise with other individuals.”
Sky News joined a team of international researchers that used an autonomous, underwater robot, called REMUS SharkCam, to track, follow and film the sharks.
It is the first time the robot has been used in UK waters, and it transmits video and data back to the scientists at the surface.
Engineer Amy Kukulya from the US’ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute told Sky News: “It’s like going underwater with a videographer, but who can go places where people can’t go.
“It tells us really cool information about the shark that it’s tracking, and its speed and position, and it comes back with information that we didn’t even think about asking.”
The robot has several cameras mounted on it, that capture the shark’s behaviour from a variety of different angles.
During the two-week project, which was supported by the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign, scientists recorded the sharks feeding just below the water’s surface, which is a known behaviour.
But they also captured sharks spending much more time just above the seabed than was previously thought they did, and witnessed signs of courtship.
The information will now be used to assess whether the area should become the world’s first marine protected area for basking sharks, a proposal which is currently out for consultation with the Scottish government.
Dr Jenny Oates from the WWF told Sky News: “Their behaviour here indicates they might be using the area for breeding, in which case it would be a really important area for Basking Shark and therefore an area that we need to protect.”
(c) Sky News 2019: Researchers use underwater robot to better understand basking sharks in Scotland
