2018: The Year in Sharks

2018 came and went tumultuously for the world in general with many ominous signs for science and the environment, not the least of which is the current partial government shutdown that will be slowing or stalling work by me, many of my colleagues, and countless…

Sharks in Pamlico Sound: The Bigger Picture

Some shark species love estuaries, and North Carolina has the second-largest estuarine system in the continental United States, the Albemarle/Pamlico system that includes the giant lagoon Pamlico Sound. North Carolina estuaries and the sharks that call them home have been on my mind for some…

2016: A Year in Review

‘Tis the season for end-of-year recaps, and I’m certainly up for jumping on the bandwagon. 2016 was year that I wanted to try and revive this blog a bit, which was at least partially successful.  Finishing up a dissertation didn’t do me any favors as…

Sharks and Rays in North Carolina’s Natural Laboratory

I got a nice pre-Thanksgiving surprise when the latest paper based on my dissertation research officially went live at the Bulletin of Marine Science.  This research was presented at the amazing Fish at Night Symposium and will be part of the upcoming special issue focused…

Expedition Inner Banks

Juvenile sharks have been in the news lately thanks to some fine work by OCEARCH, who found and tagged nine juvenile white sharks off of Long Island, confirming the area as a white shark nursery.  While this was happening, I was also out on the…

The Scientists of Shark Week 2016: East Coast Edition

Shark Week 2016 is upon us, and this year’s lineup appears to follow the trend Discovery started last year with a more science-based, pro-shark, reduced-fear approach.  David “WhySharksMatter” Shiffman has already weighed in on which shows to watch and which to avoid this year, and…

Gut Check

A few recent papers in the elasmobranch world have turned some popular assumptions about sharks and rays on their heads.  First and most high-profile was Grubbs et al (2016) dismantling the shark/cownose ray/scallop trophic cascade that not only became so entrenched that it actually ended…

Dogfish Days at the ASMFC

A couple posts ago I recapped fishery management measures that have gone into place for spiny and smooth dogfish.  Those measures covered dogfish fisheries in federal waters, which are defined as waters between 3 and 100 miles off the coast.  Waters within 3 miles are…

Perfect Little Killing Machines: Healing Factor

This long-time-coming installment of the Perfect Little Killing Machines series starts with a story about a shark I got to spend a fair amount of time with.  A couple years ago I was keeping a group of spiny dogfish in captivity as part of a…

2015: The Year in Dogfish

2015 turned out to be a pretty big year for the most under-appreciated sharks in the sea.  Now that it’s a new year that promises to offer more cool small shark science, it’s time for a look back at what happened with the spiny and…