Searching for Great Whites

IT'S fast, it's bright yellow – and it's about to stalk the shores of the Westcountry in search of sharks.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, here comes a brand new and fully customised shark tagging boat.

The vessel is the brainchild of 57-year-old shark tagger Graeme Pullen, a writer and sport-fishing photographer of some 40 years.

He has invested heavily in the boat, the Hi-Sea Drifter, that is set to tag then release for research some of Britain's biggest sharks.

And where better to hunt the predators than in the waters off Devon and Cornwall?

Mr Pullen said: "Off the north coast of Cornwall the seal population has been doing well, and they are the staple diet of a white shark. I have always been sceptical of whites being there, but given the number of people in the surf there – all wearing seal lookalike black wetsuits – it could be dinner-bell time.

"I intend to fish for Mako shark off Falmouth as well, a cousin of the Great White, as this is the hotspot where they were caught years ago.

"They haven't been landed for about 40 years, but I just know they are there. It's just that nobody is fishing for them."

Such is Mr Pullen's skill at inserting dart tags that he once tagged a Bonnethead shark in the Florida Keys, flew back to England, then three months later returned to Florida and caught the very same creature, which was again released. A blue shark he tagged off the Isles of Scilly was later recovered off the coast of Venezuela in South America.

"It's important to get the sharks to the boat in as short a time as possible, and insert the tag at an inclined angle near the dorsal fin," said Mr Pullen. "If you think of the TV programmes where they dart and tag elephant, rhino and lion, it's simple as you just shoot them with a tranquilliser gun then walk up to a sedated animal and pop the tag on. Sharks have no swim bladder, so if you did drug them they would only sink to the bottom and drown.

"So the dangerous part is that I have to pull them in on rod and line, and do the whole operation 'live'. My pal Pete had a 20-stitch wound closed on his forearm after a bite from a 40lb lemon shark, and I had a visit to the mariner's hospital in the States after a 50lb stingray drove its barb two inches into my foot."

The serious side to the enterprise cannot be exaggerated.

Mr Pullen explained: "Sharks are under immense pressure from commercial over-fishing, and only by research like this from tagging programmes can science really learn what the true stock levels are."