Yes, it’s been a while and yes, I do have more Summer of the Shark updates (and yes, this “summer project” has gotten pretty far into autumn). To get back into the swing of things, here’s a quick post on an interesting sighting I made while fishing at Bogue Inlet Pier last weekend. While reading this, keep in mind that this spot is infuriatingly not within my study area.
Update 10/19 – looks like I’m not the only one seeing dusky sharks at Emerald Isle. Details below the fold.
One of the cooler trends in marine science has been the revelation that advanced social and learning behavior are pretty widespread among marine animals, and not just the domain of marine mammals. Stereotypically, whales and dolphins are considered the big-brained residents of the ocean, able to outsmart everything else with their adorable group behavior. The truth is more complex and therefore a lot more interesting: several marine taxa from bony fish to cephalopods have proven quite smart, and some marine mammals are not so smart (the North Atlantic right whale was considered the “right” whale to hunt, and continues to be critically endangered, because they are spectacularly dumb). Fortunately for my own particular bias, sharks are following this trend. A couple newer papers show that not only are sharks highly social, but their social behavior can be just as heartbreaking and heartwarming as that of any charismatic megafauna.
In fisheries and marine science you have days that, by any objective standard, should be an amazing day in the field. You get a ton of samples, the gear (mostly) works as planned, you find out some interesting stuff, and overall have a lot of fun. The problem is, none of that has anything to do with your target species, and they continue to evade your every effort to find them. This happened to me when we packed the longline, gillnet, and a few rods to search for sharks around Cedar Island.
This logo will now be seen on spiny dogfish products.
After nearly two years of assessments and public comment, the U.S. Atlantic spiny dogfish fishery has officially been certified as Sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. This makes it the second shark or ray fishery ever to get MSC certification, and is the first multi-gear, large-scale fishery to do so (a low-quota hook and line fishery for Pacific spiny dogfish was certified first). I’ll be revisiting this in more detail as a I get a chance to read the full document, but most of my concerns and questions have been raised in previous posts. Here’s a timeline of MSC certification coverage on this blog so far:
Image from discovery.com
Before I duck into my annual review of Shark Week, I have a confession to make: I didn’t manage to see all of Shark Week this year. In my defense, it was because I was participating in an entirely different kind of Shark Week in Vancouver, and between that and some airline-related delays, I was only able to catch this year’s offerings while they were being rerun at the end of the week. Here are my thoughts on what I did see of Shark Week 2012.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention with that cringeworthy pun in the title, I’d like to put up a quick post on my overall thoughts on AES 2012 and the host city. This took a couple days due to a cancelled flight in Philadelphia and the immediate need to get caught back up with work. I’ll have a whole slew of tourist shots from Vancouver up as well, so you can skip my musing and look at the pretty pictures if that’s your thing.
The last day of AES talks wrapped up today. It’s always a little melancholy to see this conference end, but one must get back to real life sometime. Here are the highlights from Day 4.
Lots of cool talks today as this conference continues to be very good at keeping me busy. Check below the jump for the rundown on what I found interesting.
What a busy day. I’ve only got a little bit of time to get this up before I have to head over to the poster session, and I saw a lot of very good talks today. Keep following #AES2012 on Twitter to keep up with stuff as it’s happening, and keep checking back here for daily recaps. Here’s what piqued my interest today.
AES has officially begun! The first day of the World Congress of Herpetology (referred to as “AES” from here on out, because that’s the part I care about, no disrespect to the scalies) kicked off with free breakfast, which was appropriately mobbed by the attendees. I caught up with some of the shark people, checked out a nearby sushi place that had some of the best miso soup I’ve ever had, and then the shark talks began. Below the jump are my personal highlights of the day, and is by no means a comprehensive list. For more AES coverage by me and a small army of other shark nerds, check out the Twitter hashtag #AES2012.
