Previous studies indicated that tiger sharks from even the farthest regions of the island chain also gravitate to Maui for reproductive reasons. Maui-tagged sharks did not visit Oahu, Meyer said, but Oahu-tagged sharks visited Maui waters in greater numbers during the core winter months, which is the peak mating season. The pattern of shark bites, Meyer said, matches human behavior, with 70 percent of the bites occurring between 9 a.m. The study also found that tiger sharks visit near-shore waters at all times of the day and night, which would suggest there’s no greater chance of getting attacked at sunset or during the night. The data suggest that tiger sharks generally avoid interactions with people, he said. “But it’s important to remember that even though there is nearly a daily presence of these animals, there are thousands of people going into the water around Maui, yet shark bites remain rare events.”
“That equates to a near daily presence of these large tiger sharks at ocean recreation sites,” Meyer said. Off southwestern Maui, tiger sharks were present more than 80 percent of the time. What’s more, many more sharks were detected per day in Maui waters than in Oahu waters, according to the study’s acoustic tracking. The study’s tracking data indicate that individual sharks visit Maui more often than they visit the other islands - about 2.5 times per month compared with 1.5 times a month for Oahu and about once every two months for Kauai and Hawaii island. The shelf area is also ideal for tiger shark mating and pupping. The vast shelf area of reef habitat around Maui extends offshore to depths of 600 feet and is home to a wide variety of tiger shark prey, he said. Meyer, principal investigator of the study, said the ocean around Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe has more preferred tiger shark habitat than all the other main Hawaiian Islands combined. The $186,000 study was commissioned by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources following a spike in shark bites off Maui in 20. Meyer’s UH Institute of Marine Biology research team used a combination of satellite and acoustic tracking to monitor the movement of 41 tiger sharks around Maui and Oahu for up to two years. “Over the past 20 years, Maui has had almost double the number of shark bites of any other island, even though all of the larger islands have thousands of people going into the ocean every day,” University of Hawaii researcher Carl Meyer said at a news conference Thursday. Many more sharks were detected around Maui than Oahu by acoustic monitoring. More tiger sharks visit Maui because of its large protected ocean shelf, which harbors a wide variety of tiger shark prey and serves as an ideal habitat for mating and pupping.
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