Five days after the satellite tag released from the white shark, the tag has traveled another 19 miles east and seems to be holding a steady course. There is a good chance that it will be in range of Mazatlan by Sunday.

The weather also looks good so we are assembling small team to fly down to Mexico and attempt a tag recovery using a radio direction finder (RDF). This device can be mounted on a boat to follow the source of the tags transmissions. This should get us within a football field or so, then we will have to visually spot the tiny tag antenna poking out above the surface of the water.

The white shark’s last known location (just before the tagged popped off) was at an important seamount at the entrance of the Sea of Cortez, the Cabrillo seamount, also known locally as “Bajo Cabrilla”.

Volcanic activity and plate tectonics have resulted in many seamounts in this area of the eastern Pacific.

These seamounts are important areas where open-ocean fishes and sharks aggregate in high numbers, often because food (prey) is concentrated there.