Tagging white sharks for science, putting them on social media
MONTAUK, New York: After four hours at sea aboard a 126-foot vessel off the Long Island shore, the crew of two dozen mariners and scientists started to wonder as they scanned the ocean’s small whitecaps amid a drizzling rain.
The unspoken thought: Where are the great white sharks they had come to catch, take samples of and then release? Nowhere in sight, for now. “It’s fishing, not catching,” said Austin Chavez, 21, a deck hand from San Diego, while cutting up mackerel to throw off the M/V Ocearch in hopes of attracting a great white shark.
As vacationers hit beaches up and down the East Coast this last month of summer, Chavez and the rest of the crew are on a 20-day, US$400,000 expedition to catch and tag sharks with equipment that “pings” when a shark’s dorsal fin breaks the surface of the ocean. The device allows scientists to track a shark’s movement for up to five years and learn about its behavior and habitat.
The data is shared online, in real time, with several sharks this past summer being tracked to within a few miles of popular Maryland and Virginia beaches. Some sharks have been assigned their own Twitter accounts.
In July, a 12-foot great white named Hilton was detected off the shoreline of Ocean City, Maryland. The 1,326-pound, 12-foot shark was tagged this spring during one of Ocearch’s expeditions off Hilton Head, South Carolina — hence his name. Miss Costa, a 12-foot-6, 1,700-pound great white was tracked last fall off the coast near the VirginiaNorth Carolina line.
“What Ocearch is doing in terms of social media and connecting the public with sharks is unique,” said Greg Skomal, a leading shark scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “They’ve been masterful with that.”
Ocearch picked this part of the Atlantic because scientists last year discovered that it was a nursery area for young great whites. The organisation has also tagged hundreds of sharks in the waters off Australia, Mexico, South Africa, and the US Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
But its methods are not without controversy.
Some in the science community don’t like what they say is Fischer’s sometimes brash personality and perceived push for self-promotion. They say he has at times stomped into areas in the ocean where others were already doing work. He has disagreed.
Ocearch has received millions of dollars in sponsorships over the years from such companies as Caterpillar, sunglass maker Costa, and hospitality and restaurant company Landry’s to fund its three annual expeditions.
In exchange, the companies’ logos are prominently displayed in Ocearch materials, including in the background of the huge platform used to lift sharks out of the water. Ocearch also has helped develop and market a beer logo with its name and a line of bourbon billed as “aged at sea,” since four barrels are stored in the belly of the boat.
Even with its marketing pitches, Ocearch said, it’s still about the sharks.
Scientists who have worked with the group said they have made new findings about great whites. For one, they figured out that great white sharks go farther north in the winter, into the upper reaches of Canada, than previously thought.
“It caused us to throw out our theories,” said Hueter, of Florida’s Mote Marine Laboratory, who has done nine expeditions in six years with Ocearch. — Washington Post