After a huge international decline in hammerhead sharks numbers, researchers are tracking the south-east Queensland population to try and discover the movement patterns of the elusive animals.

There has been much research into the so-called man-eating shark species — including white, tiger and bull — but comparatively little is known about the hammerhead.

Griffith University researcher PhD student Johann Gustafson said hammerheads were a more "subtle" shark.

"There's not that much known about the hammerhead sharks, especially in Australia," he said.

Mr Gustafson said hammerhead numbers were steadily dropping worldwide, with roughly 97 per cent of the population disappearing in the past 15 years.

"They've suffered a major global decline in the last few years," he said.

Mr Gustafson has been tagging juveniles caught in Moreton Bay and adult sharks caught off the Gold Coast to find out their movement patterns.

"Not many people know they're there — we found mostly pups in the summer time which is when most sharks come in to lay their pups," he said.

"We found they're sitting around in certain areas for basically most of summer and autumn."

Shark researcher Johann Gustafson fishes for hammerhead sharks to tag off the Gold Coast. ( ABC News: Tom Forbes )

When the water cools down the sharks disappear and Mr Gustafson wants to discover where they go.

"Both with the seasonal changes and looking at the strength of the east Australian current and how that changes throughout the year," he said.

"Also how they migrate, what habitats they choose to use and how often they go on and off-shore."

As more advanced tags are required to track the adults, Mr Gustafson plans to attach GPS internal data-logging tags to five hammerheads.

GPS data-logging tags can track a shark's movements for a year. ( ABC News: Tom Forbes )

The tags measure depth, water temperature, time, date and light levels.

They detach from the animal after 12 months and float to the ocean surface where the data is uploaded.

Mr Gustafson said research on Hammerheads around the Galapagos and Cocos islands found they aggregate and socialise in large schools during the day.

"At night time they have a similar diving behaviour where they head out to deep waters and they have been recorded to dive to about 1,000 metres in the northern hemisphere," he said.