The Pen is Mightier…
Activity Trackers On Sharks: Building the Observation Pen
As part of our ongoing project on lemon sharks in St Joseph Atoll, we observe captive sharks for a brief time to collect baseline data. Thus, we built a tidal pen to hold a single shark for observation. In an afternoon’s work, four of us (Minion, the boat, is a crucial member of the team) constructed a 115 m2 three-sided pen, which is roughly the size of four American parking spaces. The dropping tide reveals a sandy cay that provides a natural barrier, therefore closing the pen. Accordingly, there is enough space for the shark to comfortably swim and for us to record various changes in speed, direction and depth to ground truth back at the lab.
Why build a pen to observe captive sharks? For the sake of accurate data, it’s important that we observe the sharks as they recover from being captured and by the same token as they return to normal behavior. Read more!