We usually think of sharks as dangerous predators. But Dr. Culum Brown of Australia hopes to help people find them fascinating. For the past four years, Brown has studied the social habits of 250 sharks. He and his research team used tags to track the sharks’ movements, as well as whether there were other tagged sharks nearby. The researchers found that the sharks tended to gather together. But were they just drawn to a natural resource? To find out, Brown’s team teamed up with the Taronga Zoo. They created an artificial habitat for the sharks. It did not have any special resources the sharks would be drawn to. But the sharks still tended to swim in groups. The data hasn’t been officially analyzed yet, but so far the project seems to show that the sharks enjoy being together.
