February 7^th, 2010

Today was an amazing day for the RJ Dunlap Shark Program.  As usual, the day started off with a morning of excitement, getting all the gear loaded onto the boat.  The kids were chattering and joking about what shark they were going to see first, most kids wanted to see the Great Hammerhead. Every time we leave the dock or at least every time I have been on the trip, a pod of dolphins escort us out into the blue ocean, not a bad way to start the morning.  Mostly, every time a shark trip goes out we have a group of school kids join us, giving them hands on experience on shark research and a chance to be apart of this amazing experience of saving these animals.   On Sunday, we were delighted to have a group of kids from Palmer Trinity High School brought out by Leann Winn, a Marine Science teacher and Shark Conservationist who has been coming out and helping the program for a few years now.

Sunday’s group consisted of about 8 students and 7 interns who were ready and excited to get shark tagging! After setting out all of our shark gear, which doesn’t take very long, we had some lunch, talked about how badly we wanted to deploy a satellite tag.  Before I get to the rest of my amazing story, here is some information on our satellite tags and why they are so unique. Our tags are custom made with the best safety of the shark in mind.

1) Although we mount the tag on the fin, we use special neoprene protectors between the tag and fin so that NO metal or plastic touches the shark fin (this prevents vibrations on the fin and prevents fouling and metal corrosion on the fin).

2) Instead of using plastic rods to secure the tag on the fin (which fouls and also does not disintegrate and never comes off)…we use special very expensive medical grade titanium bolts. This prevents any fin damage, corrosion or fouling. These special bolts are similar to what is used in human surgery.

3) The bolts are attached by metal nuts (which do not touch the shark skin) but only the titanium bolts. In the seawater this causes a galvonic charge, causing the nuts to slowly corrode. Thus, the tag will eventually fall off!!

In the meantime, these tags provide real-time GPS info on shark movements. We can attach the tag in less than 4 minutes, with water pump in shark mouth. Shark swims away in great condition!  Pretty cool right?

Why am I telling you about these tags? Because we got to deploy two of them!!  After lunch we started to pick up our drumlines hoping a shark was there, after the 10^th one, we started to wonder if the dramatic drop in ocean temperatures has made the sharks move to another location and then we heard the Captain Curt say, “Get ready guys, there is a large great hammerhead on the line, lets get the large satellite tag out”.  Needless to say, we were applauding, yelling, and scrabbling to our places to get ready.  We brought the female 8.5 ft great hammerhead shark to the boat, deployed the tag in less then 4 minutes and the shark swam away in great condition.

Then after pulling in some very large nurse sharks reaching 227 cm, we hear the captain yell again, “Your not going to believe it, we caught another larger great hammerhead, hurry and release the nurse shark”.  We were still shocked from the first great hammerhead, now a second?  We managed to bring the large male hammerhead to the boat, deploy the tag, and watch him swim away into the blue.  These sharks are extremely rare and their declining numbers are getting worse, so it was an honor to complete this mission.

I could write four pages on how amazing Sunday’s trip was, but I won’t.  Just know that being apart of this program is a rewarding experience, specially knowing that high school kids can be apart of it.  Thank you to everyone who was involved all weekend and especially Sunday.  You guys ROCK! GO TEAM GO!

You can track our satellite tagged shark’s daily, real time, movements  using Google Earth by going to :  http://www.sharkresearch.rsmas.miami.edu/learning-tools/follow-sharks/

Also..find out how you can Adopt a Shark.

As Always,

Brendal Davis (Shark Program INTERN)

I don’t think I really realized how much I missed “sharking” over winter break until we had that first nurse shark secured to the back of the boat.   That frenzy feeling filled the air as all the kids buzzed with their designated instruments clenched in their hands. It is truly a remarkable experience to be able to go out on the boat in the beautiful Florida Keys and have the opportunity to work with talented and FUN people collecting data from these magnificent creatures.

To hold down a blacktip shark, to be so close and to see the iridescent shine of their skin under the Florida sun is without parallel to anything I have ever done before. This trip was particularly awesome because we had a fantastic group of high schoolers. These kids from South Broward were just incredible. Everyone was really enthused ’til the very end, which was great to see because we usually loose a few by the end to the cell phones and ipods. However, this time we even had a lot of inquiries about how to work with the program outside of their school trips, how to become an intern like myself. Also, two teachers from the school were talking and came up with some great ideas on producing live video blogs into the classrooms, so that more schools could participate.

We started collecting data for a barracuda project that Laura Rock will be pursuing when she gets back from her semester abroad, so now we are measuring, weighing, and taking muscle samples from our bait. Yum! 🙂

I also found out on Friday that we now have 30 SATELLITE TAGS!!! In addition to the ten we first had, we now have CUSTOM-MADE ones for hammerheads and bull sharks! I think I am overly excited about deploying these bad boys. I SIMPLY CAN NOT WAIT.

Ok, so, before I forget, final catch of the day: 6 nurse sharks, 5 black tips, with our biggest shark being a 250 cm (which is about 8.2 ft) nurse shark that we caught on our last line…nice way to end the day 🙂 We had two other nurse sharks come in at about 230 cm, so overall it was big nurse day.

We changed locations and went to another place outside the national park. I think it’s cool to look at this data in terms of what the park’s border is doing for the shark population it protects. Are we catching the same thing in and outside the park? The same sizes? The same types? Same amount? I’m taking a GIS class this semester and I can’t wait to make some maps with the data
from our trips so we can compare and look at these type of effects.

Cheers to everyone who was out with us on Friday and to everyone who is following this blog. We greatly appreciate the support and am sure this season is going to ROCK.  Also, thanks to Mrs. Mary O’Malley who came out with us and has provided some insanely beautiful pictures for us to share with everyone.

Excited to be back on the water,
Virginia Ansaldi