Last week I took part in the 2015 edition of SciREN Coast, an event that brings together researchers and teachers to get marine science into the classroom. This year’s workshop was even bigger and better than last year’s, with 113 teachers from 13 North Carolina…
For a number of reasons, I decided (both intentionally and unintentionally) to wait until over a week into 2015 to do a “year in review” post. Part of this is because I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything up to New Year’s Eve. …
This past week my latest paper, published in F1000 Research as part of their Elasmobranch Biology and Conservation collection, officially passed peer review. This paper summarizes data collected from some spiny dogfish captured during the Back and Core Sound shark survey that seemed to be…
There’s a bit of a pardox of public opinion regarding the effectiveness of spiny dogfish as predators. Depend on who you ask, they’re either forming a swimming wall of teeth annihilating everything in their path or they’re weak scavengers, poor excuses for sharks. This much-maligned…
Spiny dogfish have had a long history of interactions with humans. These sharks, once reviled as pests, became valued food fish (particularly in Europe), were declared overfished, rebounded much more quickly than expected, and are now targeted by a certified sustainable fishery on the U.S….
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…
As those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably already noticed, this week I’m at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, an annual meeting of fish and reptile researchers that includes the American Elasmobranch Society. It’s a great way to meet up…
The inshore shark survey got some press this week. Reporter Josh Birch from WNCT rode along with last week’s night trip to capture some North Carolina shark science in action. We caught a nice blacktip, and adorable baby sharpnose, and a decent-sized stingray on camera,…
Well, that brief break from blogging escalated quickly. Between a number of housecleaning tasks (both literal and metaphorical) and the onset of field season, I managed to let an entire month slip by without posting. Which is not to say post-worthy things didn’t happen. To…
It’s been a long time coming, but the work I’ve been doing on spiny dogfish feeding ration has finally seen publication. For those with access, the paper (published in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management) is now available online (and if you don’t have…