So its been a really really long time since I last posted – what can I say things have been busy! There has been so much going on that keeping the blog up has fallen by the wayside a little bit. I will endeavor to keep things a little more current and update you all on the huge backlog of happening over the last five months including our work on tonic immobility in the lemon shark, the stress of longline capture in the Caribbean reef shark and how that effects behavior and survivorship, the abundance and distribution of sub-adult tiger sharks. There has be a lot going on!
The first update I wanted to fill you in on is the presentation of our work at the annual American Elasmobranch Society in Portland Oregon in July of this year. The CEI Shark Research and Conservation Program produced a poster presentation on the first year of SOSF funded research based on the validation of Baited Remote Underwater Video Surveys (BRUVS) and a more conservation based alternative to more traditional longline surveys. The poster is a preliminary analysis of the results with a full manuscript to be submitted by the end of this year. In addition, I presented on on the seasonal abundance, demographics and habitat use of Caribbean reef sharks. Both the poster and presentation are attached to this post so happy reading if you are interested!
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Looking to the Future
The shark research team at CEI is ever growing with a total of six full time researchers and field assistants – add to that this semesters Island School group and we have a total of twelve people actively working on shark research and conservation – not bad for a program which is only just over a year old.
These twelve researchers are currently split between two major projects and as such getting everyone in one place at one time is challenge – so when it happened organically I grabbed the opportunity to get a team photo. The program would not be where it is today if it wasn’t for the help, insight and dedication of everyone in this photo and many people who have come before them – thanks everyone!
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Today – Tuesday the 18th May 2009, marks the official launch of an initiative that the Cape Eleuthera Institute is very proud to be a part of. The new website for the shark free marinas initiative is now live and you can see it at www.sharkfreemarinas.com. The shark free marina initiative is a voluntary association of resorts and marinas who have taken notice of the threatened status of many species of shark, and have now banned the landing of any dead animals.
The goal of the shark free marina’s initiative is to reduce some of the 391,800 sharks caught and killed by recreational anglers in the US every year, most of which are utilized for nothing more than a set of jaws on the wall and a couple of photographs.
The initiative is not seeking to curtail the recreational fishing of sharks, but instead to work collaboratively with recreational fishermen to encourage catch and release.
Please visit www.sharkfreemarinas.com
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Something I have been meaning to write about for a while was the recent visit of the SOSF film and photo crew in the form of Tom Peschak and Dan Beecham. We had an amazing ten days out catching sharks – the weather did not always play ball but such is life. The boys managed to bring the sharks with them and we got our first Caribbean reef sharks of the spring as well as several tigers, one of which we put a pop-up satellite tag on. You can catch up on the boys version of events here,here, here and here!
The tag – as so many do – popped off after only a week, but in that week the shark had crossed the Exuma Sound, passed through the Exuma Islands, and was mid way across the Tongue of the Ocean when the tag popped off. That’s a journey of 120km in only a few days. More on what the shark got up to whilst crossing all that deep water when I have had a chance to look at the data.
I will leave you with a number of truly amazing photos courtesy of Mr. Tom Peschak – Thanks Tom!
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Another greater hammerhead comes to play
So sampling for this season has been difficult again with the wind blowing 25 knots plus for about three weeks now. The shark team has been bounced around out there but have still managed to get the majority of the baited video surveys completed. Longline surveys will begin again on Sunday so stay posted.
Last week we had a large male greater hammerhead shark on one of the baited video surveys, we have seen them before but what made this one special is it stuck around for a really long time giving us an amazing look at one of the least understood species of sharks.
The footage from the baited video survey can be found here.
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