Mina Hatayama
Who I am
Growing up in the landlocked state of Colorado in the USA, I never thought I’d feel especially connected to the ocean. Instead, I grew up roaming forests and climbing mountains. When I was 17, my high school science teacher pushed me to embrace an opportunity to join a marine conservation programme as a volunteer and learn to scuba dive. Descending into the depths of a foreign world was a daunting concept for my mountain-raised self, but never one to back down from a challenge, I went for it. From the first moment my head submerged beneath the surface, I was hooked. I took an impromptu gap year and spent it diving and engaging in science education and outreach programmes. During this time, I saw at first hand the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems – a world I had only just discovered but that was now degrading before my eyes. In 2022, I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in marine science from James Cook University in Australia and stayed on to study for an Honours degree in physical sciences, exploring the use of models in predicting the impacts of ocean warming on the physiology and distribution of sharks. My interest in studying the impacts of climate change on the natural world have since expanded to include the human world as well, and the way that climate change impacts socio-ecological systems. I am now studying for a PhD and my current research builds on the foundations gained during my Honours to investigate the human–wildlife conflict of shark depredation and explore climate change-resilient mitigation strategies.
Where I work
The ‘Are hot sharks hungry sharks?’ project takes place in the Maldives, a nation of islands in the Indian Ocean. The smallest country in Asia, the Maldives is located south-west of Sri Lanka and India. It comprises 26 atolls that span the equator and its unique morphology supports an exceptionally high diversity of sharks and rays. Given the lucrative industry of shark-dive tourism, in 2010 the Maldivian government declared all waters within the Maldives Exclusive Economic Zone a national shark sanctuary. The archipelago supports aggregations of young male whale sharks and manta rays. Tourism and fishing are the main industries in the Maldives. Fishing is vital for the economy, food and tourism, accounting for the employment of approximately 20% of the population. In recent years, the sharks’ depredation of fishing catches has begun to cause conflict between the two main industries, as it leads to loss of income for the fishers, and retaliatory killing can have negative impacts on shark-dive tourism. Understanding and mitigating shark depredation in the Maldives is key to balancing the long-term sustainability of shark conservation goals with small-scale fisher livelihoods within a nation that is highly reliant on both.
What I do
This project takes a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding shark depredation and includes a good mix of social science, ecology, physiology and climate modelling. My day-to-day work is dominated by juggling each of these aspects of the project. Given its multi-disciplinary nature, my project involves interviewing fishers, deploying sensors and shark tags and conducting physiological studies to assess how shark metabolism changes with increasing temperatures. My time is divided between field, laboratory and desk work. Each of these involves intense amounts of planning, so I work closely with collaborators from other universities, environmental consultancies and government research institutions to develop methodologies that maximise the impact this research can make.