Tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) movement patterns and habitat use determined by satellite tagging in eastern Australian waters

Abstract

Partial migration is considered ubiquitous among vertebrates, but little is known about the movements of ocean- odromous apex predators such as sharks, particularly at their range extents. PAT-Mk10 and SPOT5 electronic tags were used to investigate tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) spatial dynamics, site fidelity and habitat use off eastern Australia between April 2007 and May 2013. Of the 18 tags deployed, 15 recorded information on depth and/or temperature, and horizontal movements. Tracking times ranged between four and 408 days, with two recovered pop-up archival tags allow- ing 63 days of high-resolution archived data to be analysed. Overall mean proportions of time-at-depth revealed that G. cuvier spent the majority of time-at-depths of 500 m) occurred mostly