QUICK FACTS
Name: White Shark Café
Location: Mid-Pacific Ocean
Coordinates: 24.794477, -134.888853
Why it’s incredible: The patch of ocean is a gathering spot for great white sharks, and scientists don’t quite understand why.
The White Shark Café is a mysterious meeting spot for great white sharks ( Carcharodon carcharias ) located in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Baja California and Hawaii. The sharks undertake a month-long journey from their usual habitat off the coast of California to reach the Café. The region was long thought to be an oceanic desert hosting very little life, raising questions about its role in the life of great whites.
Barbara Block , a professor of marine sciences at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, came up with the name “White Shark Café” while researching the migration patterns of North Pacific great whites using electronic tags. Between 1999 and 2000, Block and her colleagues tagged six sharks off the coast of California, and examined their movements for up to six months.