Giant white sharks eat more than people think

A new study has just been published by Australian scientists showing that giant white sharks, the world's largest carnivorous fish, consume three to four times as much food as we think.

Research by American scientists in the 1980s shows that eating 30kg of meat is enough for a 1-ton shark to survive for more than 6 weeks. This has led to the assumption that large sharks can survive long no matter what they eat.

However, research done by the University of Tasmania and published this week on the Scientific Reports section of nature.com found that 30kg of meat is actually enough for sharks in 12-15 days.

White shark

Researchers have marked about a dozen great white sharks living in the Neptune Islands off South Australia and have calculated their metabolic rate from their swimming speed.

They figured out how much energy the fish had to burn and how much food they needed.

Senior researcher Jayson Semmens, who led the study, said the energy used by great white sharks would be equivalent to having to eat a young seal every 3 days.

"They (American researchers) may have chosen a very inactive shark," Semmens told ABC television. "At that time, their research methods were relatively new. They were They do relatively similar metabolic studies, but only on a single shark, the great white sharks in the eastern area of ​​the seal we studied have been very active. swimming at very high speeds to catch seals, the level of metabolism, or the engine that helped them work so hard, was much faster than we thought, these animals will hunt after every few days, instead of weeks ".

The study also seeks to understand the role of sharks in marine ecosystems. Semmens said the group does not know the population size of the white shark. But he said sharks are being threatened around the world because of overfishing.

"They are very vulnerable because of their life history. They live long, spawn late and each time there are only a few children" - he said.

Semmens said making white sharks disappear from the ocean could have a tremendous impact. He said sharks have kept control of a large number of undersea animals, much more so than people thought.

Currently, white sharks, with adults can reach 5 meters long and weigh about 1,300kg, are protected and can be found globally.