Research of the Apex

Dater: June 10th, 2016
Location: Off the coast of Hollywood Florida
Post by: Dominick Santarsiero

Another day of waking up before Apollo had the chance to pull the sun into the sky. Today was different however, today we went shark tagging! I almost sprang out of bed when my alarm went off i was so excited. Today we had the opportunity to help out researchers from NOVA Southeastern University and their research on the local shark populations. To help them out we climbed aboard with our cheery attitudes and strong hands. The main goal today was to help out the researchers set baited drum lines (two lines with five drum lines perpendicular to the shore) with  bonito fish, and then after some time waiting we would check the lines for sharks. If sharks were present on the lines we were to help tag the shark with a numbered plastic tag, take its length measurements, dermal samples, and sometimes swabbing the skin/teeth/cloaca to check the microbiology of the shark.

We were first split into 5 groups on the boat to each take two drum lines to bait with bonito fish and to check them when the time came. Me and my buddy (Justin) took drum line 5 and 10.  We first had to tie a line of mono-film line wire to a 50 pound concrete weight that had the bonito fish on a hook, and also to the weight we hooked a rope that lead to two buoys that would float on the surface so we know where we set the line. After all the lines were set, we had to wait approximately an hour and a half to check the lines, so naturally we all wanted to go snorkeling while we waited. As soon as we were in an area deemed safe for us to dive we grabbed out snorkel gear and jumped into the tropical waters of Florida. Once in the water, I looked down and saw some organisms about 30 feet below us and of course i had to free dive down to get a better look. Some organisms i found were some sea fans, a small mouth grunt, some staghorn coral, brain coral, and even a redband parrot fish.

Once we had a nice dip into the water it was time to go check the Drum lines. We all piled back onto the boat and raced back to the first baited line.  The first nine lines that we checked had absolutly nothing on them, however the tenth line had a shark! The first shark of the day that we pulling in was a female nurse shark. I had the chance to tagged this shark with the plastic numbered tag and i immediately formed a connection with her, my first ever shark I've touched in the wild.

Including this lovely nurse shark, we also caught, tagged, and measured two more nurse shark (males), a male lemon shark, and a female sandbar shark. Overall this experience was one of the coolest and more enriching field experience i've had so far. Thank you for the researchers for allowing us to help us in your research.

For more Information on the Nova Southeastern University : http://www.nova.edu/
For more Information on shark off the coast of florida:  http://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/sharks-rays/shark-species/