Fiji Leading the Shark Pack - Cool Research

Has it been a decade over there in Fiji? 

Looks like it and now we have research driven data as well.

The kind of data that helps an entire industry grow, the kind of data that Fiji and the Team at BAD are so good at initializing and producing - quality work.

If you thought today's blog post from Fiji and Da Shark was celebratory, you were correct, and congratulations are in order as well for the entire Fiji team who have fearlessly, "done their own thing," and in doing so laid out a template for sustainable shark diving the world over.

We have long been fans of BAD and Da Shark, and no we're really not secret investors, we just have an eye out for excellence in the shark diving community and Fiji consistently fires on all cylinders when it comes to commercial shark diving, conservation, and research.

So Kudos to all for this latest paper and another continued decade of adventures to all:

Opportunistic Visitors: Long-Term Behavioural Response of Bull Sharks to Food Provisioning in Fiji
Juerg M. Brunnschweiler, Adam Barnett

Abstract

Shark-based tourism that uses bait to reliably attract certain species to specific sites so that divers can view them is a growing industry globally, but remains a controversial issue. 

We evaluate multi-year (2004–2011) underwater visual (n = 48 individuals) and acoustic tracking data (n = 82 transmitters; array of up to 16 receivers) of bull sharks Carcharhinus leucas from a long-term shark feeding site at the Shark Reef Marine Reserve and reefs along the Beqa Channel on the southern coast of Viti Levu, Fiji.

Individual C. leucas showed varying degrees of site fidelity. 

Determined from acoustic tagging, the majority of C. leucas had site fidelity indexes greater than 0.5 for the marine reserve (including the feeding site) and neighbouring reefs. However, during the time of the day (09:00–12:00) when feeding takes place, sharks mainly had site fidelity indexes smaller than 0.5 for the feeding site, regardless of feeding or non-feeding days. 

Site fidelity indexes determined by direct diver observation of sharks at the feeding site were lower compared to such values determined by acoustic tagging.

The overall pattern for C. leucas is that, if present in the area, they are attracted to the feeding site regardless of whether feeding or non-feeding days, but they remain for longer periods of time (consecutive hours) on feeding days. The overall diel patterns in movement are for C. leucas to use the area around the feeding site in the morning before spreading out over Shark Reef throughout the day and dispersing over the entire array at night. Both focal observation and acoustic monitoring show that C. leucas intermittently leave the area for a few consecutive days throughout the year, and for longer time periods (weeks to months) at the end of the calendar year before returning to the feeding site.

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at sharkcrew@gmail.com.

Shark Conservation Messaging, Fiji, Imagine

We have been continually impressed with the ongoing commercial shark diving and conservation efforts of Beqa Adventure Divers in Fiji. They have been innovative leaders in the community.

From set aside regional shark reef reserves, to refusing Shark Porn in film and television, they often do what is right, rather than what is easy.

In our industry you lead by example.

This week we want to highlight BAD on a recent shark conservation PSA. Once again setting the bar for conservation messaging by a commercial shark diving operator - this video is short, visually stunning, and meaningful to a broad range of viewers.

Watching this clip you cannot help but imagine the force multiplier effect of 500 similar PSA's featuring worldwide sites and guest speakers from the global shark diving community.

Like we said many months ago in a post “Noblesse Oblige" this video represents the finest example of that ethic. Operators on the front lines of an issue taking a stand for what is right, for the betterment of the entire shark diving community and for the sharks themselves:

Beqa - Talking Shark Conservation

Becoming a fan of the ongoing shark conservation and industry blogging going on over at Beqa Adventure Divers is as easy as clicking a link. Remaining a fan is as easy as reading this weeks post about shark finning.

Coherent Op-Eds are hard to find in our industry, fortunately for the rest of us there's the BAD Blog who took a smart conversation going on over at Southern Fried Science and jumped all over it:

If this is true, many of us got to seriously re-think our approach to Shark Conservation.

It says that many fisheries, Shark fishing included, are completely supply limited.
In a nutshell, it would mean that the demand for Shark fins greatly outweighs the supply and that consequently, even if we managed to convince a lot of people not to consume Shark fins, it would have little to no effect on the market and thus, on the supply side represented by the size of the Shark fishing industry.

Couple that with the fact that price elasticity for Shark Fins is probably very close to zero (meaning that prices will rise as stocks get depleted, always balancing, or even outpacing the rising cost of having to find increasingly rare Sharks in an increasingly empty Ocean) and that fishermen are perfect examples for the Tragedy of the Commons, and we are faced with a problem of truly epic proportions.

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