Rubbermaid Turtle Shells

One would not imagine that a rubbermaid container, or as we call them "transport boxes", could be used as a refuge from the cold and the rain. However, these containers were our saving grace during the much awaited three-day Mini-Pit. The weather in early March delayed the project to a point where it could not be delayed any longer. A weather window (looked marginal at best) gave us an opportunity to go out and try to catch every shark in the North Sound. This allows us to get a general idea of how the shark population is doing before new pups are dropped off by their mothers in April and May. Lemon Shark mothers drop a litter of pups every other year and return to the same place they were born.Three teams set gillnets at different locations and a "tagging boat" was stationed at a large, central pen in the North Sound. Each night the nets were set for twelve hours and the nets were constantly watched with only 15 minutes between each check. The first night we caught 19 sharks and had ideal weather for gillnetting with warm weather, low wind, and high water visibility. The second night was cold and windy and the final night made me feel as if I was part of the "Deadliest Catch". As expected, our catches decreased with five sharks and three sharks on nights two and three, respectively.

In order to get out of the cold we used what we had on the boat to create protection from the wind. We started off building a wall using dry boxers (coolers) and transport boxes (rubbermaid containers), but this arrangement had to be broken down and rebuilt before and after every check. After dinner was delivered at about 1AM on the second night we eventually forfeited the idea of creating a wall and fended for ourselves by using the rubbermaid containers as "turtle shells". As low tide approached, we were unable to drive he boat to check the net and we had to walk-check the net. As a boat we tried to stay as dry as possible and decided to do two checks per person and then have a break. With three people on the boat, this allowed about a 2-hour break in between your checks and provided a little time to get a nap.

After my last check at 0430 in the morning I passed out under my turtle shell to awake in a daze thinking everyone on my boat had abandoned me.

When I woke up on the bow of the boat, I was delirious did not see anyone on my boat and thought that a mangrove in the distance was my two other crew members kneeling down to take a shark out of the net. Trying to gather my senses, I noticed a slight movement from the bench seat and was amazed that the lab manager, Emily, had squeezed in the bench seat and used the lid as a block from the wind. I then noticed Steve who had fit himself into an "egg " formed by two rubbermaid containers. Thankfully the wind died down as the second day came to and end as I watched a fantastic sunrise come over the mangroves. The old adage "red sky in the morning, sailor's warning" came true on the final night and made for an unpleasant experience.

Another Day in the Office

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Blog to follow, but enjoy the video for now!

A Shark's Perspective

It has been two months since flying over Bimini and setting eyes on the island that I have grown attached. My juvenile fascination of sharks has turned into passion--ironically for juvenile lemon sharks. As I face the final month of this experience, I am eager to build on the knowledge I have already gained while encountering more and more sharks.I am excited to explore more ways to get involved in research and conservation in Florida so that I can continue to be around these amazing animals.

In preparation for a new volunteer, we spent half of yesterday turning the lab upside down and cleaned the lab (don't think the lab only gets cleaned once a month, it gets cleaned everyday).Everything, and I mean everything inside and outside was cleaned. Every nook and cranny in the kitchen, bleaching the kitchen chairs, raking the back beach, washing and waxing all of our vehicles, and washing the dogs are just to name a few.
We finished before lunch and were able to take the second half of the day off to do what we wanted around the island. I took the opportunity to rekindle my love for photography and spent some time taking pictures in the pens and of the mangroves behind the lab. I wanted to experiment with my underwater housing and I got some pretty good shots from a "sharks perspective". The last picture is a pretty cool piece of driftwood that is on our back beach.

French Film Crews and Drunk Sharks

This week has started off with a little bit of excitement to add to the fact that we have been working for nine straight days. We were supposed to have three film crews coming to the lab this week, but one backed out for some reason. The crew that started filming on Monday is from France and they are here to make a documentary about Bimini with a focus on the eco-tourism that is developing on the island. From the information I have heard, they are working for the equivalent of the Travel Chanel in France. With any of the big events that go on at the lab, Dr. Gruber (the founder of sharklab and world-famous shark expert) was sure to be at the lab. The shooting yesterday focused on our research as they created scenes that showed us pseudo-catching a shark, a semi-realistic operation for attaching an external transmitter, and shots of the shark swimming past a fake SUR. Although the science behind the shooting was not realistic, it conveys the focus of our work. Unfortunately I was not able to help out with the filming or stick around for much of the shooting because I had to go out into the field. However, I was able to hear the radio conversations as Doc followed suit with many of the stories I have heard by orchestrating every move the staff and the film crew made. Today, the film crew focused on the work with the Bimini Boa being done on the island, but they will be back tomorrow to film life at the lab and on the island. This means they will be taking a trip with us to karaoke night at the beach club......should be interesting.

One of my favorite activities as the lab is gill-netting because it allows us to handle sharks and do direct work with them in the field. Our focus today was to do stomach eversions with the sharks in the North Sound to see how their diet is changing due to the mangrove destruction. Recently large amount of dirt has been filled into the sound while more mangroves are being destroyed and causing the sharks to shift more towards the middle of the sound. The area we worked in was traditionally the best spot in the entire sound to catch a large number of juvenile lemon sharks. Both of the sharks caught today were caught in the last section of net closest to the middle of the sound while normally most of the sharks are caught in the section closest to the mangroves. We can not say for sure that this is directly caused by the mangrove destruction, but we can show that the sharks have shifted their home ranges. This relationship has also been shown by the recent tracking data as many of the sharks from the western part of the sound (construction) are shifting more towards the middle. Next week we will be able to better determine where all the sharks are living when we try to catch all the sharks in the north sound during a 3-day long mini-PIT. This will also be used to determine the current population before the females return to have their babies starting in April.

In the picture above I am helping to revive a lemon shark after a stomach eversion. In order to wake them back up, water must be rushed past the gills using a bilge pump to dilute the anesthetic that is on the sharks gills. The bilge pump is tilted up every so often to aerate the water that is rushing past the shark. In the other picture the shark is being "taken for walk" to make sure he is trying to swim. The sharks are in an almost drunken state when they wake up and often will nose plant into the sand before they come to their senses and swim normally. After he is able to swim, he is put into a holding pin for 24-hours and released the next day.

Floaterloaf

*DISCLAIMER* If you have a weak stomach or get grossed out easily, you might want to skip this blog.

If you've ever pondered what five months of waste looks like when it fills a septic tank, I can give you a simple description........meatloaf.....or as I like to call it floaterloaf. Yes, yesterday everyone at the lab participated in the semi-annual event with the g-rated name-- "poop pit." With the poor weather on Wednesday we got a head start by digging a large hole that would soon be the new home to five months worth of floaters.

The day started off with everyone rummaging through the charity bin full of clothes to put together a good looking outfit for the much anticipated festivity. The guys went all out and came up with some good looking regalia. The shorts i found were a little too big for me and I was not about to risk the possibility of ruining a belt so I decided to rig suspenders using fishing line. The suspenders served a duel purpose by keeping the shorts from around my ankles and adding comic relief to the event.

The uncovering of the tank was like sliding giant stones off a tomb filled with golden treasure, yet our jewel was more of a brown color sprinkled with a hint of yellow. Thankfully there was a strong wind and I was slightly congested since the initial smell was quite strong (of course I was one of the ones who had to pull the lid off). Lines formed and the solid layer was removed with shovels and buckets.

After the icing was taken off the top, we were able to use a trash pump to pump the saltwater and other liquids into our newly dug swimming pool. Wanting to get the full experience of the acclaimed day I helped Jim manage "the business" end of the pump. As the chocolate fountain rained out of the hose I could only laugh at the situation. After the septic was emptied the hole was filled back in with sand; the job was done and we got the rest of the day off. Despite the ideal weather yesterday, I can not imagine doing this in August or September when the heat is brutal and the wind is minimal. Thankfully I won't be around for that, but it was an aspect of the sharklab that I will never forget.

Hanging Out With a Legend

There should have been a small-craft advisory in the north sound this week with a two to three foot chop caused by the gale-forced winds blowing from the south. There truly is a difference in the temperature of the wind when the wind is blowing from the south compared to the cold wind blown in from the northwest. Ready for the next season of Deadliest Catch, I suited up in high-visibility foul-weather gear courtesy of PIP and was brighter the ball in times square. Despite looking ridiculous walking around the lab and blinding people with my glow, I like to think that someone could see me from space. After a soggy ride to the north sound, tracking was nearly impossible with the strong wind and constant chop on the water. The hydrophone popped out of the water with each swell as the tracker sitting on the bow nearly slid off with the roll of each wave. Needless to say neither team collected much tracking data this week.

The weather broke on our day off and although it was not as exciting as the staff's day off (baited in five hammerheads) it was a memorable day. We called upon the Bimini fishing legend Bonefish Ebbie to drive us around and see more of Bimini from the water. We started the day off on the northwest side of the island looking for dolphins to swim with. After about an hour or so of cruising around with no signs of any large pods of dolphins we decided to snorkel one of the historic sites on Bimini. We moored up at a site called the Bimini Road which is thought to be the road to Atlantis. The road is a mile long stretch of rock that was formed in a north/south direction along the coast. It was a really nice snorkel and we saw eels, nurse sharks, lobsters, and a wide variety of fish.

After about an hour in the water we packed up and headed to the marina to pick up a box of squid to feed to the stingrays at Honeymoon Harbor. I have fed the stingrays at SeaWorld, but feeding stingrays in the wild is a lot more fun and some of them get a little up close and personal swimming all over you in search of the squid. While the feeding frenzy is going on, bonefish start swimming around as the eat the small pieces of squid floating around. Before I realized why Ebbie had asked for a squid, he was reeling a 3-4 pound bonefish by hand. There were no rods on the boat that day, but he had managed to use what he had laying around the boat to do what he does best and catch bonefish. He brought in at least three fish in the twenty minutes we fed the stingrays and had so much fun hooting and hollering as he caught each fish. Ebbie has been fishing in Bimini for bonefish since the 1970's and charters his boat daily hooking people into the one of the bahamas most prized game fish. He is a genuinely nice guy and shared his love for gospel music by singing to us all afternoon.

Shark Bait

Normally when you think of fishing in Bimini, you think of immense game fish like 1,000 pound tunas, gigantic swordfish, and large marlins. However, here at the sharklab we go fishing with the sharks in mind. In order to pull off all the long lines, shark dives, and hammerhead baiting, we need large amounts of bait. A single 24-hour longline set consists of 5 different lines,each with 15 gangions (hooks). Obviously you can do the math; we need 75 chunks of barracuda to go on all the gangions.

I was pumped last week to hear that I was assigned to go fishing for barracuda. I knew that we would have luck, but I didn't expect to seta sharklab record.......11 cuda in one day (really half a day). Around one set of rocks we caught at least 7 within an hour. At the end of one fight, I had a school of amberjacks circle the barracuda as I brought it to the boat. One took a big look at my barracuda but didn't go after it.As I look back on it, I wish I had left it in the water because I'm sure he would have been caught by one of the two trebble hooks on the lure as he went after the barracuda. As the end of the day neared, my roommate hooked into a fish that fought much different than the rest of the fish we caught that day. It had a strong initial run and then everything stopped and no line could be gained on the fish. We thought that the fish had rubbed the lure off and a rock. As we drove the boat towards the line, I was prepared to put my mask on and dive down and unhook the lure. Suddenly the fight was back on and up comes a nice sized grouper. We were amazed because the last thing we were expecting to catch while trolling shallow rocks was a grouper. Needless to say, it fed the entire lab the next night.

Although I like fishing for barracuda, I look out over the gulf-stream every morning and wish I had a chance go after the trophy game fish that frequent the waters no more than a mile from Bimini. Despite all I am learning down here, there is nothing I would rather do than go fishing. As we came in with the sunset I couldn't be happier.

Hammer Time

If you have MC Hammer's "You Can't Touch This" on your ipod or if you so please, search for it on YouTube because it will definitely get you as pumped up as I am when thinking about what happened this yesterday. From now on when I hear that song, I will instantly think about the boat ride with this song playing over the radio as everyone in the lab drove out to the magic spot to bait in GREAT HAMMERHEADS. Stocked with the barracudas and grouper carcasses from our fishing escapades the day before (next blog) and wahoo carcasses from a tournament on the north island, we were excited about enticing the hammerheads that frequent Bimini this time of year. After about thirty to forty-five minutes of the staff scraping the carcasses with a knife, shaking frozen chum bags, and squirting menhaden oil into the water with no luck we were getting anxious. At that point I took over for Sean, the lab manager, scraping carcases while he went and speared a couple fresh jacks. After about fifteen minutes scraping the heads of a sixty pound wahoo and thirty pound grouper, both Jim, the assistant lab manager, and I look up at about the same time to see a ten-foot Great Hammerhead rushing to the large amber jack head anchored on the bottom. The adrenaline rush I got at that point rivaled any of my big pitching performances in college. I immediately started screaming HAMMERHEAD, HAMMERHEAD, HAMMERHEAD to everyone on the boat as I had someone give me my camera. While everyone else suited up into their wet suits I just marveled at the size, beauty, and strength of the shark. I was able to spend the most time in the water with it and to top that, I was no more than fifteen feet above it just watching it eat the bait on the bottom. The shark ignored us while it swam in and out of the blue taking passes at the bait on the bottom. If this computer will let me I will edit one of my videos down because the pictures do not do justice to how magnificent this animal truly is. If you ever have the opportunity to get in the water with one of these sharks it will honestly leave you speechless. It was truly an experience I will never forget.

New Month, New Faces, Big Excitement

The start of a new month (for us the middle of the month) brings new faces to fill the spaces of those who left. Three new volunteers arrived Monday morning to replace the one who left while bringing a much anticipated shipment of food. Although the volunteer who left had to do so prematurely due to an accident involving popcorn, it was nice to get new faces around the lab. During their second night on Bimini, many stories were shared among all of the volunteers while enjoying a warm bonfire on the beach.

With much anticipation, the adrenaline-rush activities run hand-in-hand with the start of a new month. We will be having a shark dive in the near future and the 24-hour long line starting tomorrow afternoon. With Great Hammer Heads making their way through the Bahamas this time of year I am very excited about the possibility of seeing one and hopefully getting in the water with one. Unfortunately during the last long line I was on the boat that caught the 254cm tiger shark and was unable to swim with it. During this long line I am hoping we catch at least one tiger shark and have the chance to get some good pictures fromthe water.

A Chance To Cook

Before coming to the lab a month ago I was very worried about the food and expected cafeteria style meals. Despite those negative thoughts I am yet to be dissapointed and look forward to supper (for you mid-westerners) everyday. Our meals are all made from scratch and rival the cooking of the great cooks in my life. Needless to say I am learning new recipes and I am very excited to learn to make bread on my next duty day. However, on our days off we have to fend for ourselves by either going out and getting dinner at one of the three restaurants on the island or cooking something from the food available at the lab. The recent schedule and weather allowed us to have basically two days off in a row and I have offered to cook dinner both nights for anyone who wanted it. Last night I cooked a spicy spaghetti sauce from scratch that reminded me of the time I cooked spaghetti for all 35 baseball players in college. It was delicious and had everyone around the table sniffling because of the spice. With food stocks low (we are getting replinished tomorrow with the arrival of new volunteers) I whipped together my new favorite recipe courtesy of Heidi's Mom. I cooked sesame chicken (without sesame seeds) with a sweet and sour sauce over rice for all the volunteers in the lab. It turned out great and it is awesome to cook something other people enjoy. Although cooking is a lot more enjoyable when other people offer to wash the dishes, I have a lot more appreciation for the lab manager who cooks meals for us on a daily basis.

A Little XCTF

In honor of all my football buddies i brought the seriousness of extreme capture the flag (XCTF) from the high school days to Bimini. Armed with only headlamps and faces covered with charcoal the teams were split and the field was set using the land around the lab. Sneaking around using only the light available from the thousands of stars in the sky, the game started off in a stalemate with neither team building a solid attack. After several attempts my team was able to get the flag across the midway point for a victory. Although it was not as intense as the games from high school, I came away without any parasites in my legs (at least I hope) and happy to reminisce in memories from the past while making so many new ones down here.

Shark Puke

First I want to apologize for not keeping this updated as much as I'd hoped and I promise I will do much better these next two months. However, I hope the title grabbed your attention because we have done some pretty cool things this week.

Despite the strong winds (at least it's not snow)we have been able to do a variety of different projects to help the PI (principal investigator) with her project. One of the main focuses of her project is to determine how the destruction of the mangrove forest (construction of Bimini Bay) in the North Sound will effect the juvenile lemon sharks. Not only do the mangroves provide shelter for the sharks, but they also provide food. So thats right.....we wanted to see what was in their stomachs. We used a gill-net to capture several juvenile lemon sharks and then transferred them to a pen where we performed the procedures. The shark is put to sleep using an aesthetic called MS-222 and is then held upside down (my job) and using forceps the PI carefully pulled the sharks stomach lining out through the mouth and dumping the stomach contents into a tray. The stomach is carefully put back into the body cavity and the shark is revived (picture below). Unfortunately I was not able to get a picture of the procedure since I was holding the shark, but I will get one the next time we do it. The stomach contents reveal what the shark has eaten by matching the DNA found in the stomach contents to reference DNA samples from prey in the area.


In order to determine what prey is available for the sharks we use a very long net with small holes called a seine. The net has floats on the top and lead weight on the bottom. A seine team consists of at least 5 people: 2 people that pull the net and 3 that "scare" fish and other animals into the net. Once the net is stretched, the people pulling the net start a very tight circle and come towards one another as the "scarers" splash water and push the fish back towards the net. Once the two ends of the net come together everything is trapped inside and the net is then pulled tighter and tighter until all the contents are within a small circle. The top and the bottom of the nets are tightened together and then lifted onto a boat where it is a mad dash to sort the contents into buckets filled with water. All the fish inside are measured and weighed to get a sample of the prey availability in a given area. The majority of the fish we catch are small barracuda, needle fish, snappers, and a ton of small minnows called silversides. This week we caught a honeycomb cowfish (look it up it's awesome looking) and a DNA sample was taken to add to the reference collection. This then allows the researcher to determine what the sharks are eating compared to what is available to them. Hopefully these descriptions illustrated a good picture of what we have recently been doing at the lab.

History and the Future

Before coming to Bimini two weeks ago I began to read Hemingway's Islands in the Stream in anticipation of my trip. I finished the book last night after many twists and turns and finally ending in a complete different direction than where it started.....Bimini. This small island has not only been home to artists, authors, and world class sportsman, but also a pivotal place for smugglers throughout American history. During prohibition smugglers used the island to rum run, during the 80's and 90's they smuggled drugs, and currently the big business is the smuggling of aliens into the United States. During one of our assignments this week we utilized one of the small creeks on the east side of the North Island called smugglers pass. During the drug heyday, the channel was used as a drop off and pick up spot for drugs asthe platforms can still be seen today. Bimini is changing drastically because of the development of a huge resort and casino on the northern part of the north island. The nurseries of the lemon shark and other fish are being disturbed significantly because of the destruction of large amounts of mangroves in the North Sound. I will talk more about this at a later, but it is a very large issue encompassing which the future of the island.

During the week I was on a crew that utilized gill nets in hope of catching juvenile lemon sharks that would be used this week by a visiting researcher. However, the one shark we caught over a 7 hour period was too large for safe handling and to be honest no one at the lab could correctly identify the species of shark it was and the photos are being sent to a professor at FSU. Despite an unproductive day catching sharks I found three very large conch and caught a lobster....so the day wasn't ruined. One day my group put SURs (Submersible Ultrasonic Receiver) back into their housings around the research areas. These work by passively recording the identifications of the sharks that swim past to get a general location of where the sharks are swimming.

Our nights are spent either playing tennis, playing pictionary (which is hilarious to watch foreigners play), or watching movies. We recently watched SharkWater, a documentary about shark finning and the devastating effects these practices have not only on sharks but also on entire ecosystems. These wasteful practices where the shark is caught, fins are cut off while alive, and then rolled back into the water to sink to the bottom is driven by a greedy oriental market for shark fin soup. Shark fin soup is merely a status symbol and ironically the shark fin itself has very little taste. However, these are the same ruthless markets that are ruining other fish stocks around the world- but if I talk about that this blog would turn into a novel. However, I really suggest watching the movie. All 9 segments of it can be found on YouTube or it can be easily rented. Here's a statistic to end with........ every year on average 5 people are killed by sharks............more people are killed by vending machines than sharks. So long for now.....

Cracked Conch and Days on the Water

Beep Beep Beep.......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep.................Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep......Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep. These are the noises that I am going to learn to love as we recently had our first day in the field tracking juvenile lemon sharks in the north sound. The sequence above is transmitted by a small radio transmitter about the size of your pinky finger implanted inside the body cavity of the shark. From the sequence above we are able to identify this shark as shark 378 and we tracked this shark for about 4 hours while he swam through the mangroves. Tracking these sharks helps identify their home-range and determine if the construction of a large resort and the consequential destruction of almost half the mangrove shoreline is having an impact on the lemon shark nursery. I have no complaints about spending my entire "work day" on the water.

My second check of the long line was a success as we found a 258cm tiger shark on the line. I took the DNA sample of the large shark and have some good pictures of it. Trying to hold onto the dorsal fin of the beautiful shark was extremely tough because of the immense strength of the shark. The group that hauled the lines had the luck of catching two more tiger sharks that I was not able to see. However, I got to watch two surgeries for the removal of the radio transmitters from previously tracked sharks. It was really cool being able to watch the shark put into tonic (hypnosis) while they performed the surgery. The following days were filled with class after class, but thankfully they are done and I am ready to spend every possible day on the water. For now the adrenaline filled activities are over, but I am sure they will be here again before I know it. We had the day off today and spent the day exploring the North Island which was very interesting and had my first cracked conch which was delicious. We finished the day with a snorkel on a rock formation called three sisters. It was a very pretty snorkel but was a long swim to get out there and to get back. So long for now......

First Shark Dive

From Bimini

Here is a link (click the picture) to the video from the shark dive/snorkel we did yesterday. It was unbelievable as you will see from the video. Sorry the video is unedited but you will see how close we were in the water to the sharks. If the sharks got too close, we were told to kick them to fend them off, but most of the time before the fin actually hit them they felt the difference in water pressure from the fin and skirtted away. At one point (may or may not be on the video) they got really close because when the director was throwing a chunk of bait into the water his hand hit the T-top on the boat causing the bait to fall short......right in front of us.

We had a series of other classes yesterday as well and started the once a month long line. I was part of the group that had to go out and check the 5 long lines at 1am. We caught two blacktip reef sharks and so far are the only group to catch sny sharks. I am going back out at 10 to check the lines again. So long for now....

First Day in Bimini

After much anticipation of my trip to Bimini, I am finally here and speechless at how beautiful it truly is. The flight in the nine seater was a little interesting, as the book "Pilots guide to the Bahamas" was on the floor in the cockpit. The lab is identical to the pictures on their website (basically a double wide trailer), but it was bigger than I was anticipating. I am sharing a room with Jon (Yawn) from Switzerland, , and Tyler from Vermont.

We had a class on longlining yesterday as we are setting the long lines tonight. This is done once a month to check the overall population of sharks on Bimini. We will be checking the lines every 4 hours and if something interesting is caught the entire lab will wake up to go look at it. They haven't set the schedule for the checks but I would be up for one of the midnight checks. We have a class on shark handling this afternoon and a shark dive this morning. I will be sure to take lots of pictures. So long for now

One Week Away

It's one week from my departure to the island of Bimini and I am extremely excited to start the next chapter of my life and pursue my love for marine conservation. I will be keeping everyone up to date through this blog since many people have asked that I email them during my trip. My goal is to use this not only as a way to keep you guys up to date on the activities and projects I'm working on while at the Sharklab but also as a way for me to reminisce about my experiences far beyond my return in April. I will be posting pictures and videos from my daily activities down at the lab and will hopefully do it on a daily basis depending on the availability of internet and my schedule at the lab.