Shark week students and program manager, Edd Brooks, prepare to release a 100cm juvenile lemon shark.
In response to the barrage of scientific half truths and shark bite specials loosely disguised as “educational programming” annually aired on the Discovery Channel about this time of year, the CEI Shark Research and Conservation Program decided to start shark week of its own based on a revolutionary new idea. We were going to use science, and hands on field experience to educate and inspire high-school children. Crazy I know – but it might just work….
Shark week students return from setting the survey line in a local mangrove creek.
Amazingly, or not, the program was a total success! From 27 July through 3 August 2010 ten high school students from across the United States, the Bahamas, and Europe visited the Cape Eleuthera Institute for a week of shark research. The daily activities focused on student participation in field research during the day, while activities and classes on shark biology and ecology in the evenings. Students participated in two ongoing research projects, one focusing on the nursery habitat of the juvenile lemon shark found in local mangrove creeks, and the second focusing on the 2009/2010 SOSF funded project looking at the variation in abundance of various demographics within the annual Caribbean reef shark aggregation seen off cape Eleuthera. (more…)
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2010 American Elasmobranch Society Meeting, Providence Rhode Island.
The field of elasmobranch stress physiology has grown to such an extent that the subject warranted a special symposia at the 2010 American Elasmobranch Society Meeting held in Providence, Rhode Island. The stress physiology symposium entitled “The Physiological Stress Response in Elasmobranch Fishes”, was hosted and run by Dr Greg Skomal, and Dr John Mandelman, and was was kindly sponsored by The Fisheries Conservation Foundation, and the long time supporters of the CEI Shark Research and Conservation Program, the Save Our Seas Foundation.
Edd Brooks presenting on the the 2008 SOSF funded project, "The Physiological Consequences of Longline Capture in the Caribbean Reef Shark (Carcharhinus perezi)."
The Cape Eleuthera Institute was represented by the manager of the Shark Research and Conservation Program, Edd Brooks, who presented the findings of last year’s SOSF funded study into the effects of longline capture on the Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi). This ground breaking study used field based blood chemistry diagnostic equipment to look at the sub lethal effects of capture, combined with new acoustic tracking equipment to correspond the magnitude of the physiological disruption to any variation in post release behaviour. A copy of the AES presentation can be downloaded here, and the complete findings of the project will be published along with the rest of the presentations from the stress symposium in the Journal of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology – Part A later this year. (more…)
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The shark research team with the Hon. Larry Cartwright, Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources.
One of the most unique and rewarding parts of running a research program at the Cape Eleuthera Institute is the role most of us play at our sister organisation, The Island School. Twice a year, 48 high school students from all over the US and The Bahamas take part in a three month semester program and one of their keystone experiences relates to the primary research undertaken at the Cape Eleuthera Institute. Every semester the Shark Research and Conservation Program takes 6-8 Island School students and guides them through the scientific process, from posing a question, gathering the data to answer that question, analysing the results and finally communicating their findings to collaborating scientists and Bahamian policy makers at the bi-annual Island School Research Symposium.
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A Caribbean reef shark in a mild form of tonic immobility whilst being blood sampled by the CEI shark team.
One of the biggest problems facing anyone interested in the physiology fish is how to generate a baseline level of blood chemistry. What does the blood chemistry of a fish look like if it hasn’t been captured, handled, poked and prodded all in the name of science? What are the normal levels of lactate, glucose, carbon dioxide etc., to which we can compare our “stressed” samples to?
For small fish this is relatively easy. Take the recent work on bonefish by the Flats Ecology and Conservation Program here at Cape Eleuthera Institute. Bonefish were housed in darkened holding chambers with a steady supply of fresh seawater for 36 hours upon which they were rapidly removed and blood sampled before the blood chemistry could change. However, it is a tricky proposition to try and apply this technique to a 6ft Caribbean reef shark!
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Drawing Blood from a mature male Caribbean reef shark.
Small scale longline surveys are the predominant method for investigating shark populations, and when longlines are implemented on a much larger scale, are responsible for the widespread commercial harvest of sharks all over the world. Any capture event, including longline capture, unleashes series of physiological and physical disturbances, the issue is that very little is know about how this physiological stress impacts the behaviour of an animal post release, or if indeed the animal survives.
This year’s project took a two stage approach to begin to investigate the effects of longline capture on the Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi). Firstly, blood samples were taken from sharks that were captured during our longline surveys, using hook timers to accurately determine the amount of time the shark had been on the line. Blood was taken from the shark and portable blood analysers were used to quantify various blood chemistry parameters which in turn indicate the level of physiological stress the shark was under for a given duration of hooking. Secondly, a subset of fifteen sharks were equipped with acoustic transmitters which emit an ultrasonic series of pings every 45 seconds which can be detected by an array of underwater hydrophones. These transmitters had a three-dimensional accelerometer incorporated into the tag which measured the activity level of the shark every 20 seconds post release, the data for which was in turn transmitted and stored on the seabed hydrophones. The hydrophone array itself consisted of 32 receivers covering approximately 14 square kilometres of seabed in prime reef shark habitat. The use of these transmitters allowed us to quantify the activity level, depth association and movement patterns of the Caribbean reef sharks post release and begin to understand how capture events might impact their behaviour.
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