Australian researchers are trying to find out if captive bred sharks could help maintain wild populations.

They are releasing captive bred specimens of the strangely named (and even stranger-featured, looking like the offspring of a mop and a catfish) wobbegong shark and tracking the cute little things to see if they behave as a proper shark would.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald six wild tagged wobbegongs (it’s not clear what type of wobbegong these are) are already being monitored in what is the first attempt to compared captive-bred shark behaviour with the behaviour of their wild brothers and sisters.

“We’re going to release the wobbegongs and tag some wobbegongs from the wild, and we’ll be able to compare the movements and migration to see if those [captive] wobbegongs behave naturally,” Charlie Huveneers, from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, told the paper.

In a press release from July, when the project started, the institute notes that other species will later be included in the study too, including Australian Giant Cuttlefish, Blue Gropers, and maybe Weedy Seadragons.

“We’ve got these tags in them and out there we have a array of listening stations so we can pinpoint the exact location of where they are,” Vic Peddemors, of the Department of Primary Industries, told National Nine News. “Every one of these guys, we can track their daily moments, their hourly movements, their movements by the second can be tracked.”

“Shark populations are being depleted because of practices such as over-fishing, shark-finning and the use of shark nets at beaches, so we’re keen to raise awareness about the need to protect sharks, particularly those which are found mainly in Australian waters like wobbegongs,” says Rechtorik (Reuters, which also has a photo gallery).

Related: “Unborn wobbegong sharks are being raised inside an artificial womb as part of a world-first marine conservation experiment in Port Stephens,” says the Sydney Morning Herald.

Image: by Leonard Low, via Flickr