There’s been some exciting news from the Cayman Shark Study project – last week, project leader Mauvis Gore and the rest of the team attached a SPOT satellite tag to a 3.5m long Tiger shark, which they’ve nicknamed Tina. What makes this tagging so interesting is that, unlike regular satellite tags, which send their GPS data months after being attached, the SPOT tag Tina is sporting transmits its location every time its aerial is above the surface. This gives researchers a near real-time view of where the shark is spending time, providing insights into its feeding habits – the Cayman researchers suspect that Tina is spending time in shallower waters in search of prey such as turtles and manta rays. See the full post for more details!

Meanwhile, our Chief Scientist Rupert Ormond, who heads up the Basking Sharks project, is working on the launch of the European Basking Shark Photo-ID database. Though only a fraction of Basking Shark individuals can be identified by the shape of their fin and distinctive marks on it, Rupert cites improvements in the quality of photos produced by modern SLRs as a factor which will now facilitate the positive photo…

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Tragedy has befallen the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh: between November 30th and December 5th five incidents of snorkelers being bitten by sharks were reported, the most recent of which proved fatal. Shark attacks in the area are incredibly rare, especially so many in such a short space of time, causing widespread speculation as to what might have triggered these events. Here we aim to provide some information to help answer some of the many questions being asked by the media and members of the public.

What are oceanic whitetip sharks?

The species responsible for the attacks in Sharm is believed to be the oceanic whitetip shark, due to sightings of one in the area shortly before the first attacks, however this remains unconfirmed and few other details on the sharks involved are available. The oceanic whitetip is a large open water shark that can be found in tropical and warm temperate seas. Although usually encountered over deep water they do sometimes come close to shore. These sharks tend to have quite a varied diet due to the sparse distribution of prey in the open ocean (it’s not too dissimilar from hunting in a desert), but display…

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An ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) meeting is underway in Paris this week. The major item on the agenda is the future of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been overfished and mismanaged to the point where, unless quotas are drastically reduced (and actually enforced – see this exposé on the $4 billion black market in bluefin), stocks may be fished to commercial extinction soon. While the European Commissioner for fisheries, Maria Damanaki, has called for a reduction of catch levels by more than half, this stance has been dismissed by France and other countries with a vested interest in keeping quotas at the current level.

After the unsuccessful attempt to get bluefin listed under CITES Appendix I earlier this year, which would have led to a fishing ban, the ongoing ICCAT meeting is a “last stand” of sorts for the species. Many EU members, including Germany, support a “zero catch” policy, at least for a few years, to allow for bluefin stocks to recover. Even Japan, the target market for most bluefin, is throwing its weight behind measures to preserve the fishery: Mitsubishi, which in addition to making cars controls most bluefin trade in Japan,…

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Yesterday evening the Save Our Seas Foundation was proud to receive a Panda award at the Wildscren Film Festival in the category Best environmental Campaign for its short film “Save Our Sharks”. Winning a Panda award is widely seen as the highest accolade for wildlife film makers. Watch the Save Our Sharks short film →

This years 3 finalists were: The Bottom Line produced by Greenpeace; Yao Ming: Shark Fin Soup PSA produced by Wildaid and Save Our Sharks produced by the Save Our Seas Foundation.

The Campaign award is given to the best production, not commissioned by a broadcaster, that covers an environmental campaign. This category includes campaign films which illustrate the wider issues of environmental concerns.

This award is especially significant as it was directed, filmed, produced and edited by our own in house team. Save Our Sharks is a 6 minute film which aims to educate the public about the barbaric practice of shark finning and it’s link to shark fin soup - a delicacy which threatens to push sharks to global extinction.

For the last 3 years SOSF has won the highest accolades for our conservation campaigns which is a testament to the…

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The Cape Eleuthera Institute has recently initiated a new research program investigating the diversity and abundance of deep ocean sharks living in the Bahamas. The program has had a really great start with the team capturing twenty-five animals from six different species in the first three days including some really fascinating deep ocean sharks like the incredibly rare Springer’s sawtail catshark - only described in 1998 and very few records of it anywhere in the world!

Humans know virtually nothing about the species that inhabit the deep ocean realm and this is especially true of deep ocean sharks.  As commercial fisheries are turning their attention to the deep many of these deep-water sharks are being exploited without any understanding of their biology and ecology. Read the full account of this incredible research expedition including some more great photos on the CEI project page.

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On the heels of discovering the world’s largest bull shark – referred to as a Zambezi shark in most parts of Africa – in the Breede River on the southwest coast of South Africa, scientists from the South African Shark Conservancy (SASC) are ecstatic to have received project funding for 2010/2011 from the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF).

The research, which began in 2008 with an exploratory expedition to identify the shark species present in the Breede River, has been focusing on capturing, tagging and manually tracking Zambezi sharks to examine habitat use and behavioural patterns in an area that is thought to be their most southerly distribution in Africa.

Since capturing a 4m female Zambezi shark in 2009, two 3m males have been captured, tagged and tracked.  We have now spent about 500 hours on the river following these three massive animals around, “watching” them interact with the human users of the system.  In all this time we have hopefully succeeded in dispelling the popular local view that Zambezi sharks are man-hunting monsters of the inshore environment.  In fact, they appear to be just the opposite – having interacted with residents of the Breede River…

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It was the day after World Ocean’s Day and not a scientist was stirring in the arctic temperatures of the Sharks International’s conference rooms. Instead we were celebrating underwater in the warm Coral Sea and exploring the tremendous diversity of coral life, which forms the Great Barrier Reef.

The next day we were immersed once again in a series of talks about the status of sharks on our blue planet and the many ways that researchers are uncovering their secrets. The morning began on a very different note - with a talk on shark control programs (including the shark nets off South Africa’s Kwa-Zulu Natal) by Geremy Cliff from the South African Shark Board. After listening to a series of rather depressing talks all morning on the animals caught in shark safety nets (fishing gill nets), targeted large-shark fisheries and illegal shark fisheries we were treated to an afternoon focused on genetic and molecular techniques in shark research.

One of the biggest difficulties in fisheries management is the widespread distribution of most species and the fact that sharks don’t acknowledge international boundaries. Dr. Shivji, based at the Save Our Sea Shark Research Centre and Guy Harvey Research Institute in Florida,…

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