There are paradises on this planet? Indeed, and Fiji is one of them. Arte has produced a docu that also highlights some aspects of the Bull Shark Tagging Programme. You can watch it online here.
Comments (1)Bull Sharks, Fiji
Juerg Brunnschweiler has been studying bull sharks in the Shark Reef Marine Reserve, Fiji for the past 6 years. Up to eight different species of sharks can be encountered on a regular basis making it an excellent reef for studying free-ranging sharks and other reef fishes in their natural environment. [Project Page]
20 August 2010
23 July 2010
The little creatures
Diving in the Shark Reef Marine Reserve is different from most other places foremost because of the number of sharks. By sharks I mean especially bull sharks that can show up in packs 
of up to 50+ individuals on some days. Add the ocasional tiger shark and you will understand that their presence somewhat distracts from focussing on the smaller creatures that live on the reef. And there are plenty of them! For example, tiny little juvenile sharksuckers that are looking for a host or already found one. Very little is known about the behaviour and ecology of sharksuckers generally and even less about their juveniles. Have you ever noticed small juvenile sharksuckers of 5 cm lenght on larger host species? This size class can be regularly seen on, for example, giant trevallies or the fast moving rainbow runners in the Shark Reef Marine Reserve. Ivan and I have published a little piece of information about small juvenile sharksuckers in the journal Coral Reefs. Send me an email if you want a PDF copy of it.
18 May 2010
Using local ecological knowledge to identify shark river habitats in Fiji
A while ago I blogged about our attempts to find out more about the occurrence of sharks in Fijian rivers. The results from the interviews with locals living along various Fijian rivers have now been published in Environmental Conservation. I will present parts of this paper including additional results from our shark fishing surveys in rivers on the southern coast of Viti Levu at the upcoming Sharks International conference in Cairns.
Comments (0)12 April 2010
Fragile Paradise
Here is a sequence from the film “Fragile Paradise”, part of the BBC’s documentary series “South Pacific”. It features the Fiji Shark Dive in the Shark Reef Marine Reserve and you might spot some tagged bull sharks. Enjoy!
Comments (0)9 February 2010
Fishing for sharks in Fijian rivers
Lots of things have happened in Fiji since my last blog entry in September last year and I apologise for not keeping you updated. I was busy finishing a manuscript reporting the results from interviewing the locals living along the rivers. In the meanwhile, the paper has been accepted for publication by Environmental Conservation and will soon be available. Needless to say that we were happy learning that locals see and sometimes catch sharks in all the major rivers in Fiji. On the other hand, we were a bit surprised that nobody could tell us what species of shark they catch further upriver in low salinity/fresh water (there were some reports of hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks and other species from the river mouths). The names they used to describe the sharks were “baby shark” or “small shark”. So we set out to learn more about sharks in Fijian rivers and went fishing in the Navua River which is the one closest to the Shark Reef Marine Reserve. From acoustic monitoring we know that some of the large bull sharks we see (and tagged) at the Shark Reef Marine Reserve regularly show up at the mouth of the Navua River and we suppose that some of the large female bull sharks we see on Shark Reef give birth at the end of the year in this particular river. It would therefore be no surprise to find juvenile bull sharks in the Navua River. (more…)
