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.