Shark 'Cowboy' Richard Fitzpatrick Hitches Ride After Tag

January 6, 2008

Release from: Herald Sun (Australia)

Meet "the shark cowboy" -- a marine scientist who ropes giant tiger sharks and "rides" the maneaters as part of his research.

Richard Fitzpatrick, who admits most people think he is either "a liar or a loony", needs to frolic with the ocean predators to tag them with devices that can be tracked by satellite.

The devices, called splash tags, track sharks to the depths of the ocean. The new technology has tracked some sharks over tens of thousands of kilometres a year and has found that some return to the same site each year.

Mr Fitzpatrick's research is part of a program funded by the CSIRO and the Australasian Natural History Unit.

"Within the Great Barrier Reef marine parks, some of the shark stocks have depleted by 90 per cent," he said.

"If we want to protect them in the future, we need to know where they go."

Mr Fitzpatrick said some of his best research had been at Raine Island, 620km northeast of Cairns.

"One of the sharks we got this year was the very first one we put a splash tag on last year - we caught the same shark at the exact same spot on the exact same day (of the year)," he said.

"She was 3.2m long last year and this year she was 3.68m.

"That was pretty amazing."

Mr Fitzpatrick's team have filmed their exploits - which include putting a rope on the tail of a shark and then grabbing its dorsal fin to secure the tag.

A TV documentary is planned.