By Julia Whidden, RJD Graduate Student C’était un vendredi fantastique à bord le navire du Divers Paradise avec nos nouveau amis d’une école secondaire en la France! (Translation: It was a fantastic Friday on board the Divers Paradise boat with our friends from a high school in France!) The RJD team met at Crandon Marina […]
By William Evans, RJD Intern I woke up on Thursday morning and saw that it was slightly overcast and drizzling. For more people, this would be a sign of a gloomy day inside but for me and the rest of the RJD crew, it was the perfect set up for a day of shark tagging. […]
By Hannah Calich, RJD Graduate Student Last Friday the RJD team was joined by the fabulous students and teachers from Westminster Christian School for another day of shark tagging! The RJD team met at Crandon Marina at 8 am to begin loading up Divers Paradise. Despite the hurricane over the Bahamas, Miami’s coastal waters were […]
By Samantha Owen, RJD Intern This paper outlines the current conservation efforts for the Critically Endangered Amsterdam albatross (Diomedea amsterdamensis) and the threat posed by industrial longline fisheries. In 2007 a population survey estimated that there were only 167 Amsterdam albatrosses in the world. This is largely because they are only found in one place, […]
By James Keegan, RJD Intern Toxic shellfish and toxic seafood in general are not modern phenomena. Human practices and records indicate that shellfish poisoning has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Many believe that diet restrictions dictated by the Bible demonstrate a wariness of shellfish poisoning. Moreover, Native Americans would keep watch […]
By Emily Rose Nelson, RJD Intern Seagrasses are an essential part of the marine ecosystem. They provide food, habitat, and safe nursery areas to a wide range of species. Seagrasses help to stabilize the sea floor during intense currents and storms, filter nutrients coming from land-based runoff, increase water clarity by trapping sediments, generate oxygen, […]
By James Keegan, RJD Intern Often, humans and top predatory carnivores compete for the same resources, even in the marine environment. This conflict occurs where fishing operations of humans and feeding areas of the predators overlap. In South America, fishermen complain of adverse competition from South American sea lions, which interact with all types of […]
By Jake Jerome, RJD Graduate Student It has been shown that global seafood trade inherently drives seafood production, negatively impacting marine ecosystems worldwide. While it is well known that these ecosystems are deteriorating, most research has been focused on global stock assessments, catch trends, or fisheries dynamics, with little attention given to researching the ways […]
By Alison Enchelmaier, RJD Intern Friday morning couldn’t come fast enough. It felt like forever since I had been on a tagging trip and I was chomping at the bit to get started. The crew arrived an hour early to load gear and everyone seemed to be in a genial mood as we hauled drumlines […]
By Rachel Skubel, RJD Intern Last Sunday we had a fin-tastic trip with Riviera High, wherein we were fortunate enough to come across three unique species of sharks just a couple miles off of South Miami Beach – including a breathtaking 4-meter great hammerhead. This was our first secondary-school trip of fall 2015, and we […]