Blue Shark Satellite Tagging Data from Atlantic Canada

46 Pop-up Satellite Archival Tags (PSAT) and SPOT tags were deployed on blue sharks from 2004 to 2008, with 39 tags successfully reporting data. The dataset includes depth, temperature, and ambient light level profiles, along with maximum likelihood position estimates. Tagged sharks ranged from 124 cm to 251 cm in fork length, with deployments lasting from 4 to 210 days.

Use Cases

• Analyze depth and temperature profiles from PSAT tags to model blue shark vertical habitat use in Atlantic Canadian waters.
• Use ambient light level data for geolocation estimation to reconstruct movement paths and identify potential foraging grounds.
• Correlate shark fork length and sex metadata with time-at-liberty and tag deployment success rates to study tag retention.
• Investigate seasonal patterns by examining deployment dates (mid-August to early October) in relation to recorded depth and temperature time series.

Strengths

• Data originates from 46 individual tag deployments on blue sharks, providing a multi-year sample from 2004-2008.
• Includes data from three specific tag models (PAT 4, Mk10, SPOT3) with known reporting success (39 of 46 tags).
• Provides detailed biological metadata for each shark, including fork length (124-251 cm) and sex (30 female, 15 male, 1 unknown).

Limitations

• The sample size of 46 tagged sharks is relatively small for population-level inference.
• Temporal coverage is limited to late summer/early fall deployments (mostly September), missing full annual cycles.
• Position estimates are derived from light-level geolocation, which has lower accuracy than GPS and depends on processing assumptions (e.g., 2m/s max swim speed).

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Data collected via Pop-up Satellite Archival Tags (PSAT) and Smart Position and Temperature tags (SPOT) deployed on blue sharks from commercial and recreational vessels.

Time Range

2004 to 2008

Freshness

Data collection ended in 2008; the dataset provides a historical snapshot rather than current tracking information.

Geography

Atlantic Canadian waters