Lindo shark success puts Bermuda ‘on the map’

It is almost four years to the day since Choy Aming and Neil Burnie tagged a big male tiger shark off Challenger banks.

The Bermuda Shark Project was just in its infancy at the time and few expected the tag to last more than a few months.

But the tag and the shark, which was named Harry Lindo, went on to exceed any of the expert’s wildest dreams relaying groundbreaking details of the Tiger’s movements for more than three years.

Harry provided scientists with the longest GPS track ever recorded for a tiger shark.

And between August 31, 2009, when he was first tagged, and November 10, 2012 this incredible animal covered a remarkable 27,000 miles and sent back 359 transmissions.

It gave scientists an unprecedented view of the migration habits of this secretive species.

Mr Aming said: “Back in 2009 we were told by the guys in Rhode Island that six months was a good length of time for a tag to last. Anything else was a bonus.

“So we were really amazed by the duration the tag on Harry Lindo lasted but also the incredible data we got from it.

“It showed how he would return to the same locations at the same time of year; it was as if he had his own build in GPS.”

Harry Lindo’s three-year journey after he was tagged took him from Bermuda down to the Turks and Caicos, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. He repeatedly returned to Anguilla and Barbuda, and even came back to within a couple of miles of Bermuda in September 2012. 

Mr Burnie added: “We tagged eight sharks in 2009; it was our first year of serious tagging.

“At the time we just hoped to get an idea of the migratory habits of tiger sharks.

“He has provided more than three years of fascinating data, which exceeded our wildest dreams. The success of this tagged shark puts Bermuda on the map and at the forefront of this research.”

This year Mr Burnie and Mr Aming have been out again, and earlier this summer, tagged their biggest tiger shark to date — a 12ft 1in male weighing around 800lb.

They will be heading out to sea again in the coming weeks and hope to tag a further five tigers before the end of the year.

Mr Aming added: “We are a bit more selective now about the sharks we tag. 

“We want to try and focus on the juveniles and the females to see if there is any difference between them and the male tracks that we have already recorded.”

Dozens of sharks have been fitted with satellite tags by the Bermuda Shark Project together with their partners Brad Wetherbee, of the University of Rhode Island, and Guy Harvey and Mahmood Shivji of the Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), Nova Southeastern University. 

The groundbreaking information is providing the GHRI scientists with a slew of new data about tiger sharks. 

Researcher Shara Teter has been able to collate and animate the tracks, which can now be viewed online at www.nova.edu.