Project A5: Hammerhead Shark Movement Tracks in Australian State Waters

Australian state waters host the movement data for hammerhead sharks tracked with Wildlife Computers miniPAT archival and SPOT6 tags. The dataset consists of Google Earth KMZ files, with some including a Maximum Extent of Location Estimates (MELE) polygon. It was published by the Australian Ocean Data Network and last updated on 2026-06-04.

Use Cases

• Mapping shark movement corridors based on satellite and archival tag data.
• Analyzing habitat range and residency within state waters based on the MELE polygons.
• Studying site fidelity and restricted movement patterns described in the data.

Strengths

• Includes a defined geographic scope, with movements restricted to Australian state waters.
• Provides multiple data formats (KMZ, PNG, HTML) for visualization and analysis.
• Data originates from two specific tag types (miniPAT archival and SPOT6) from Wildlife Computers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Data collected from hammerhead sharks tagged with Wildlife Computers miniPAT archival tags and SPOT6 tags.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 11:17:27.477147; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian state waters, with no movements reported across state or international boundaries.