Another Round on the Neuse

Late last summer, I embarked with an intrepid crew of Duke grad students to track bull sharks in the Neuse River.  We came up empty-handed that time, but a year later I found myself going back for another crack at catching, tagging, and following the…

The Case Against Dolphin-Safe Tuna

Here’s another shining example of a post I should have had up a week ago before life intervened.  Last week the World Trade Organization ruled that the dolphin-safe label on canned tuna unfairly discriminates against Mexican fishermen.  The debate could result in trade sanctions against…

NOAA/NMFS Plans to Reduce “Problem Species” Populations

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is often painted by fishermen as a rabidly pro-conservation agency hell-bent on putting them out of a job by protecting every species they used to fish.  However, leaked internal memos show that the agency is taking a turn back…

Cape Cod Dogfish Tagging Round 2

Finally managed to get enough time between recuperating from the trip and moving apartments to sit down and give you all a recap of what I and the rest of the Rulifson lab have been up to for the past week or so.  As you…

Orcas Spotted off Oregon Inlet

And you thought dogfish stealing your catch was bad…  Recently a group of fishermen looking for bluefin tuna off of Oregon Inlet here in North Carolina’s very own Outer Banks had quite the show as a pod of orcas appeared around their boat, and one…

Ocean of Pseudoscience: Flipper is a Fraud!

This little bit of pseudoscience is a perfect example of how popular culture can distort our view of how nature works.  Most people are familiar with Flipper, whether it’s the old TV show from the 60’s, the short-lived 90’s reboot featuring Jessica Alba, or the…

Shark News Briefs

Not really a true post, but there are a couple noteworthy shark-related items available on the internet today that I wanted to make people aware of. First off, in response to my post on the general lack of trustworthiness in dolphins, David over at Southern…

You Just Can’t Trust Dolphins

The title of this post has been a personal philosophy of mine for a while, and one of the things that makes me glad to be a part of the Southern Fried Science network is that I am among like-minded individuals.  I don’t know what…

Ew, Just Ew

As a budding marine scientist, I’ve had to see fish dismember themselves in fishing gear, dissect things that look like they crawled out of the Star Wars cantina, dispose of rapidly-thawing specimens dated from 2003 (while the wind was blowing the smell and pieces of…