Researchers from the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and Deakin University fitted an adult male shark with a pop-up satellite tag and tracked it for more than five months.

After being tagged, the shark swam more than 20km out to sea, then headed north to Queensland. 

It roamed between 80 and 280km offshore between Agnes Water and the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, before heading to the cooler waters in southern NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. 

DPI scientist Paul Butcher said more than 950 sharks had been tagged as part of the project, but this specimen was unusual because of its size.

The data collected so far showed the larger great whites spent most of their time 20 to 30km offshore. They are diving down to 700 to 800m in water depth, but spend most of their time in the top 50m of the water column.