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.....