MARGARET JACQUARD
U.S.-based shark tagging expedition coming to Nova Scotia waters
The organization that tagged Hilton the shark is coming to Nova Scotia waters in September in hopes of tagging more great whites as the animals look for love in Canada’s ocean playground.
Chris Fischer, co- founder and expedition leader with OCEARCH, figures the area off the South Shore is likely the mating grounds for the sharks.
“This is one of those expeditions where it’s proper ocean exploration,” Fischer said in a telephone interview from his home state of Utah earlier this month. “We don’t know what we’re going to find out there. We believe, because of the tracks of Hilton, that it is a mating aggregation that is occurring up there, in that Mahone Bay region.”
OCEARCH tagged Hilton in March 2017, off Hilton Head, S.C. Since then, satellite tracking has shown the more-than-3.5-metre-long adult male spent the entire mating season last year off Nova Scotia and he’s returned again this year.
Fischer said the mating season for great whites is just beginning and will extend through the fall months into November, peaking in the September-October time frame.
Nova Scotians will get a chance to check out the research vessel MV OCEARCH when it arrives on Sept. 18. There will be some community events in Halifax and Lunenburg before it heads out.
“We feel like when we bring the ship to a region, we feel like and understand it’s a privilege for us to operate in your all’s ocean,” Fischer said.
Researchers will spend about three weeks aboard the vessel, hoping to find and tag mature great whites of both genders.
“And particularly, if we can get some tags out on some large, mature females, they could show us where the Canadian white sharks are giving birth about 18 months later, because they have an 18-month gestation period,” Fischer said.
Since OCEARCH began launching expeditions in 2007, they’ve typically done three a year, each lasting between 21 and 25 days. They’ve been around the world but this is their first expedition in Canadian waters. They expect to wrap it up on Oct. 12, concluding their expedition season.
Fischer said they will start with a primary work site in the Cross Island area, southwest of Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. That’s one of the region’s most abundant seal areas.
“Those animals … are basically natural chum,” Fischer said. “They’re defecating, they’re bleeding, they stink, they’re urinating and they create a massive natural chum slick. What we try to do is get up in that slick so when the white sharks come in, if they have the opportunity to feed on an adult, we can present a bait to it.”
With a combination of hand-lining and boat driving, it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to bring a 1,800-kilogram shark to a retractable lift alongside the main vessel. Six to eight minutes for a 450-kilogram one.
“We walk the shark right into that lift and we’ll pick them up, we put hoses in their mouth and we do 15 research projects on the shark in about 15 minutes, one of which is the tagging, which allows everybody to track them and then we let the shark go and it immediately goes up on the shark tracker for the whole world to follow in real time.”
Finding where the sharks are mating and birthing will provide a fundamental data set to help observe and manage large shark populations, Fischer said. JACQUARD, Margaret Rose – age 86, Roseway Manor, Sandy Point, Shelburne Co., formerly of Yarmouth, passed away peacefully on Sunday, August 19, 2018 in the Manor. Born March 9, 1932 in Yarmouth, she was a daughter of the late Joseph and Rose (LeBlanc) Muise. Margaret was a homemaker and she enjoyed cooking, baking and just spending time with her family. A tiny woman with a big heart, Margaret will be remembered for her wit and for being a good listener. She is survived by sons, Ronald (Hattie) Jacquard, Yarmouth and Darryl (Nicole) Jacquard, Arcadia, as well as by grandchildren, Tanya (Matt) Wiseman, Trevor, Dylan and Tara Jacquard and great grandchildren, Jase, Cooper, Avery and Reyna. Also surviving is a sister, Theresa Cottreau, Wedgeport and a brother, George (Susan) Muise, Tusket. Aside from her parents, she was predeceased by her husband, Paul V. Jacquard; a daughter, Sharon Jacquard; a sister, Diane Bourque and brothers, Wilfred, Wally and Lawrence Muise. Visitation took place from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday with prayers at 7 p.m., at H.M. Huskilson’s Funeral Home, 29 Albert St., Yarmouth. A funeral Mass was held on Thursday, August 23 at 10 a.m. from Saint Ambrose CoCathedral, Yarmouth, Father Henry Smolenaars officiated. Interment followed in Our Lady of Calvary Cemetery. It was requested that there be family flowers only. Memorial donations may be made to the Children’s Wish Foundation. You may leave messages of condolence or sign the online guestbook by visiting www. huskilson.net