Every Post is a Comeback Post

So I had originally intended to have a mini-blitz of material posted during Shark Week involving some of the topics that slip under the Shark Week radar, but for some reason technical difficulties arose that prevented me from successfully posting.  Also, in the middle of…

Actual Sharknado off of Cape Hatteras

North Carolina’s weather has never been what you’d call predictable, especially off of Cape Hatteras (all those shipwrecks have to come from somewhere).  That said, what I saw yesterday while tagging sharks off of Hatteras takes the cake.  During what had been an uncharacteristically nice…

Shark Week Gets the “Mermaids” Treatment

So I’m settled in to enjoy this year’s Shark Week, my second favorite shark-related time of the year (AES having taken over at first), and notice with some trepidation that the week is kicking off with a “documentary” on modern day attacks by Carcharocles megalodon.  Megalodon…

Help with Prey ID

Long time no post, I know.  The main reason for that has been the sheer amount of field work I’ve found myself involved with this semester, all of which somehow came to a head in the past month.  On the bright side, now that I’m…

Misunderstanding and Abusing Ecosystem-based Management

That ever-reliable settler of internet arguments, Wikipedia, defines ecosystem-based management as “an environmental management approach that recognizes the full array of interactions within an ecosystem.”  At heart, this type of management is supposed to keep all the cogs of an ecosystem moving so we can…

Summer of the Shark: Best Red Drum Survey Ever

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…

Summer of the Shark: Warts And All, Mostly Warts

Some field days just don’t go well.  This past Thursday I went out with Evan and Jeff to do a little opportunistic shark sampling in the Pamlico River while they were out collecting water samples for a striped bass project.  What actually happened was quite…

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…

Trawling is Not Plowing

This probably should have gone under the annual Southern Fried Science Week of Ocean Pseudoscience, but last week kept me busy enough to effectively prevent me from doing any writing here.  For some reason, I’ve been hearing from multiple fishermen, people who have worked with…