31 January 2023

In a new scientific paper just published in the Environmental Biology of Fishes, a wildlife filmmaker and a biologist at UC Riverside may have solved one of the enduring mysteries of Great White sharks: Where are they born?

And they did it using a drone.

Videographer Carlos Gauna and organismal biologist Phillip Sterne were filming the coastal waters around Santa Barbara back in July 2023, when their drone captured footage of a pure white, newborn shark . 

“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” said Sternes. “I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”

The duo's drone video—and their findings reported in their Environmental Biology of Fishes paper—may reveal something that has baffled the scientific community for quite some time.

“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science," said  Gauna. "No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive. There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers. But nothing like this.”

The baby white seems to be a pretty exciting discovery.

“Observations of free-swimming newborn white sharks are extremely rare, and any new video or photographic evidence may be very valuable,” said Tobey Curtis, Fishery Management Specialist within NOAA Fisheries’ Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division. “As the use of drones becomes more widely accessible to the public, we are likely to document more unique or unusual wildlife behaviors—including where many shark species mate and give birth. Such observations can help us better conserve these species and their essential habitats.”