Photo-grammetric measurements of swimming speed and body length of basking sharks observed around the Hebrides, Scotland
Abstract
Photo-grammetric techniques developed for measuring body length and small scale movement patterns of cetaceans were applied to surface swimming basking sharks off the west coast of Scotland. These methods removed the need for close approaches, reducing the likelihood of disturbing the focal animal. Average swimming speed was calculated from the total path length between shark locations measured at approximately one minute intervals. These average speeds varied from 0.49 to 0.73 ms−1 for tracks of between 30 and 170 minutes' duration. Body length measurements ranged between 2.35 and 6.43 m. For ten sharks where body length and swimming speed were measured there was a significant correlation between body length (L) and swimming speed (V) expressed as V = 0.36L033.
Citation
Lacey , C , Leaper , R , Moscrop , A , Gillespie , D M , McLanaghan , R & Brown , S 2010 , ' Photo-grammetric measurements of swimming speed and body length of basking sharks observed around the Hebrides, Scotland ' , Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , vol. 90 , no. 2 , pp. 361-366 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025315409000769
Publication
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0025-3154Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2009. Published by Cambridge University Press
Description
This work was funded and conducted by the International Fund for Animal Welfare.Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.