PHOTOS: 5 Sharks, Rays Needing Urgent Protection The research also sought to improve understanding of how sharks fit into the ocean ecosystem. "These animals are probably going to be feeding you know every few days, rather than multiple weeks." "Their metabolic rate or the engine that runs them is much faster than what we had assumed. they're coming up to some pretty high speeds to catch the seals. "The white sharks at a seal colony where we worked, they're working pretty hard. They did some metabolic work similar to us but on one shark. "At the time it was a really novel study. RELATED: 100 Million Sharks Killed Each Year "They picked a shark that probably wasn't working very hard at the time when they did it," Semmens told ABC television. Senior research scientist Jayson Semmens, lead author on the study, said the amount of energy required by great white sharks was equivalent to eating a seal pup every three days. They worked out how much energy the sharks burned and how much food they required. Researchers tagged a dozen great white sharks at Neptune Islands off South Australia and calculated their metabolic rate derived from swimming speeds. However, a University of Tasmania-led study published this week in Scientific Reports on the website found that 30 kilos was only enough for 12-15 days. That perpetuated assumptions that large sharks could survive long periods without eating.
research from the 1980s estimated a 30-kilogram, or 66-pound meal of mammal blubber could sustain a one-ton shark for more than six weeks. Great white sharks, the world's largest predatory fish, eat three to four times more food than previously thought, an Australian study shows.
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