Great white shark tag recovered on Tongatapu coast [1]
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - 11:30. Updated on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - 16:49.
A transmitting tag that washed up on a southern Tonga beach, after dropping off a great white shark earlier this month, has been recovered this morning.
Using a hand-held GPS directional system, Roger Miller and his assistant Bruce Dixson from Waste Management Ltd. followed the co-ordinates and picked up the PAT tag off the Ha'ateiho Reef at low tide around 7:30 am.
The data it contains will be analysed by New Zealand marine scientists to find out where the great white shark that it was attached to has travelled since it was tagged in the Chatham Islands in April. Half of the tags attached to six great white sharks in the Chathams have popped up in Tonga recently but this is the only one to be recovered.
When it transmitted briefly from the Ha'ateiho coast on November 7 Clinton Duffy, a scientist with the Aquatic & Threats Unit in New Zealand's Department of Conservation contacted the Millers who live about 1.5 km from the Ha'ateiho Beach. But then the tag stopped transmitting and despite searching the beach several times the Millers were unable to locate it.
Last night the tag started sending out a signal again and Clinton was able to determine the co-ordinates, which he sent to Roger.
"We were able to track it by GPS to within 20 metres of its location and then we saw it lying on the reef," said Roger who was delighted with the find. "It looked as though the tide had washed it up onto the reef and it was slowly moving down the coastline in the direction of the tide."
There was no reward for the recovery but Roger said that Royal Beer now owed him a crate of beer and that Air New Zealand's Nuku'alofa agent had offered to carry the tag free of charge back to New Zealand.
Great white sharks were previously unknown in Tongan waters.
See article: 3 Great White Sharks drop tags in Tonga [2]