DORSAL FIN PHOTOIDENTIFICATION: TOOL FOR LONG TERM STUDIES OF WHITE SHARK (CARCHARODON CARCHARIAS) BEHAVIOUR

Studying the behaviour of the White Shark is a recent and big challenge. Optimising the photoidentification of White Shark dorsal fins is a basic goal, in order to compare ehavioural information in both immature and mature specimens and between females and males. During a 6 years research, from 2009 to 2014, we observed about 296 sharks and 8 specimens were resighted several times. Data about sex, sizes, environmental conditions and behaviours were collected. This is the first step to develop a more complex database in which include all the observed behaviors for each shark in different environmental conditions over the years. The final goal is to share the information we have collected with other research groups operating in other geographic areas working on other populations of white shark