Jane Stevens at Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, CA - Faster than a speeding squid, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's young white shark blasted south when he was released on Feb. 5. In just 44 days, he "made it safely past fishing grounds on the Pacific coast of California and the Baja Peninsula, rounded Cabo San Lucas and is heading toward the Mexican mainland," according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

His last transmission put him near Mazatlan. He's wearing two tags -- a SPOT (Smart Position or Temperature Transmitting) on his dorsal fin, and a PAT or pop-up archival tag that will automatically release, float to the surface, and start sending data about water temperature and depth along his route. That tag is due to surface on July 2. It has enough battery life to send -- for two weeks -- a mere sample of all the data it collects. But TOPP's researchers would like have all the data, so, if it surfaces close to land, they'll go after it, as they have for another white shark and a salmon shark.

Every time this young shark broke the surface with his dorsal fin, the satellite tag transmitted data to the Argos satellite system. The photo above on the right was taken by Monterey Bay Aquarium photographer Randy Wilder when the shark was living in the Outer Bay.

Over the last three years, the aquarium has released three young white sharks: a female white shark in 2005 wore a pop-up tag that showed she traveled from Monterey Bay to north of Santa Barbara in 30 days. The second shark that was released, in 2007, wore only a 90-day pop-up tag, and it was just rounding Cabo San Lucas when the tag popped off. Aquarium and TOPP researchers were successful in retrieving it.

Just after the young white shark was released on Feb. 5, he mmediately headed south to warm waters.

The juvenile whites seem to like warmer waters, although they hang out in colder waters when they get older. TOPP's researchers have learned that adult great white sharks who live in the waters along Northern California migrate to an area between California and Hawaii known as the white shark "cafe". You can see that on the white shark animated map. But little is known about where white sharks are born or how they spend their early years. If this young shark keeps successfully avoiding fishing lines and nets, his SPOT tag will help us learn more about his life. You can follow him on TOPP's data section. Ken Peterson, who does the aquarium's terrific blog, Sea Notes, will also have updates.

Here's the track of the little guy -- all five feet ten inches of him -- heading from the cool, cool north (the blue waters), to the warm waters off Mexico. This image shows the sea surface temperatures measured by a satellite just a couple of days ago.