February sapper mag:Layout 1 21/1/09 16:17 Page 36
Ex Jurassic Sh
By Cpl Tim Gort
T
wo Royal Engineers, Capt Richard Beck (RMons RE) and
Cpl Tim Gort (3 RSME Regt), have just returned from a
daring shark tagging SCUBA diving expedition to a selection of
remote islands 300 miles off the west coast of Mexico: Guadalupe
and the Revillagigedo Islands.
Ex Jurassic Shark 2 was open to serving personnel from all three
Services with the aim of contributing towards shark conservation in
the Eastern Pacific. The islands are prime sites for a number of
species on which very little is known. The expedition aimed to tag a
selection of endangered sharks (primarily great whites, scalloped
hammerheads and whale sharks) in order for their migratory habits to
be recorded and analysed. All tagging was carried out whilst the
sharks were free swimming as this is the least stressful method for
the fish (if not the taggers ....).
To do this the team of 16 cross-service
personnel went aboard the support boat
Sea Escape for nearly three weeks 19 Oct
- 7 Nov 2008. The expedition started
with a turbulent one day journey before
arriving at Guadalupe, 250 miles west of
the Baja California to tag the great white
sharks. Great whites can be temperamen-
tal so diving was restricted to gathering
data from behind bars in specially made
cages. The tagging crew stayed safely
above the surface ready to jab a harpoon
with an electronic tag attached into the
great white sharks as and when they
could. Capt Richard Beck was fortunate
enough to succeed in tagging one of them
and commented that “it was not every
day that you jab a spear at a great white
shark as it passes by!”
After four days of successful tagging the
expedition returned to shore for resupply
before enduring another perilous journey
to the Revillagigedo Islands, a largely
uninhabited collection volcanic rocks
300 miles south of the Baja California to
begin Phase 2; tagging the scalloped
C
hammerheads and whale sharks.
All dives thereafter were carried out in
open water and in some of the few prime
Great White (and seal)!
shark habitat sites to be found on earth.
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