For many years, scientists had thought that great white sharks traveled north and south along the Pacific coast of America, feeding in waters close to shore. Then researchers at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station began tagging white sharks with satellite tracking tags. Rather than staying along the coast, great whites were traveling a thousand miles out into the Pacific in the winter and spring and congregating in an area which the researchers nicknamed the “White Shark Cafe.” (As cafes go, it is quite large with a radius of around 250 kilometers, although as compared to the scale of the Pacific, it is tiny.)

Why the sharks swim for up to 100 days to gather in the “cafe” is unclear, particularly as satellite data suggested that there was little food to be had in the region. The satellites suggested a virtual ocean desert. That data, however, was misleading. This year, the research vessel Falcor tracked sharks to the cafe and discovered that there is a rich and diverse food chain too deep to be detected by satellites. In the deeper waters, there is abundant food for the male, female and juvenile great whites who spend months in the area.

The discovery of the deep-water nutrient-rich layer suggests how little we know of and understand the open ocean.

Following the recent expedition, the scientists aboard the Falcor are now analyzing the data collected to attempt to understand why the coastal sharks choose to gather in the mid-Pacific. One working hypothesis is that the “white shark cafe” is a place to socialize meet and mates 

White Shark Cafe Cam