By FRANKIE LOW AND HANNAH MCKENZIE, YEAR 6
WHAT’S more dangerous than a shark?
Sunshine Beach State School recently had a shark specialist, Chris Fischer from Ocearch, visit the school to help answer this question.
Ocearch, an American company, researches sharks and their movements.
When the company decided to research sharks off the Australian coast, chief researcher Chris Fischer and his family called Noosa their temporary home.
In his visit to the school, Chris used video clips to show how they tag the sharks and shared interesting facts about sharks – such as that they swim over 50,000km a year but stay in a particular area.
Once the team identifies a shark they have to get it onto the underwater platform of the boat, tag its dorsal fin and then attach a GPS within 10 minutes so that the shark is not harmed.
Chris explained that faulty toasters which kill over 500 people a year were more dangerous than sharks with four fatal attacks.
Chris and his team decided to name a shark after our school.
The students were invited to choose a suitable name for a shark which they called ‘Sunny’.
The students can now go online and track Sunny their female Tiger shark, which was tagged off Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.
Sunny is 3.83 metres long and weighs 436.8kg.
