Fan of the Shark PSA Joe Romeiro and Mike Reiser

We have been watching the media career of Joe Romeiro for the past few years and along with most of the shark community were amazed at his video Nina Salerosa.

That particular video short was bar setting stuff.

As it turns out Joe is doing Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) on the east coast, our own blues here off California have been virtually wiped out in less than a decade of rampant fishing pressure.

Along with him this month was new shark shooter Michael Reiser, who produced this short shark PSA while managing to impart the grace and beauty of the Blue shark, nicely done:

Frank Solomon - Firing on all cylinders?

Apparently Frank Solomon thinks you can snorkel off shore in a chum slick with sharks and not come under some intense scrutiny.

Unfortunately that's not always the case, and Franks chum filled shark adventure was soon topside.

Filmmaker Zeina Aboul Hosn - First Rate

Fifty years ago, the Arabian Gulf was full of sharks, but now no one knows how many are left.

Kuwaitis who once lived off the Gulf's fish and pearls seem not to know or care. Only a few individual voices and small NGOs call for conservation.

Environmental filmmaker Zeina Aboul Hosn joined an expedition to search for the forgotten sharks of the Gulf. She and expedition leader Richard Peirce find sharks lying dead in Kuwait's fish market, their fins cut off for soup.

Zeina had to dive into an aquarium in front of gawping tourists to film her first live shark before she finally got to swim with a small group of sharks in the wild waters, bringing us the full emotion of this story of devastation:

Blue sharks suck back cephalopods like PEZ

IN THE GULF STREAM, some 300 kilometres off Nova Scotia’s coast, hundreds of thousands of huge blue sharks are slipping under warm waters, rising and falling without fail in a mysterious daily rhythm, as if they were yo-yos on kilometre-long strings.

It’s a dance never before imagined. These massive predators — lions of this oceanic food chain — swimming on the Atlantic’s surface by night and by day, sinking blindly to its inky depths, so far down no light could ever reach them, no creature could ever be seen.

And it’s a winter ritual that has scientists amazed.

"Nobody had any idea they were doing this," Steve Campana, head of the Dartmouth-based shark research team that made the discovery, said in a recent interview.

"We found that all of these sharks are leaving Canadian waters in the late fall and when they swim out, they inevitably run into the Gulf Stream, this giant current of warm water that comes up from the Caribbean. Within a day or two of hitting the Gulf Stream, every single blue shark started this wild diving behaviour whereby they would spend the night up in the surface waters — in the top 30 or 50 feet (nine or 15 metres) — and every day they would spend down in incredible depths, as far as a kilometre below the surface.

Complete Story.

ICCAT - Tuna are done, sharks get the nod

Conservation Triage is never pretty especially when species are being pushed to the back of the conservation line by commercial fishing interests.

Thus was the series of meetings in Paris last week, ICCAT, and a decision not to address Bluefin tuna catch reductions while at the same time adding some protections for sharks.

The shark protections, while hailed by many as a conservation win, mean for the most part sharks caught at sea will be dumped at sea, out of sight and out of mind to both consumers and conservation groups. The sharks are still being taken by very technically savvy fishing fleets, but fins will no longer arrive in Hong Kong to be added to bowls of soup.

For the bowls of soup conservation crowd - this is good news.

Like we said Conservation Triage is never pretty.

There are a few good news points to this years ICCAT, protections for Oceanic whitetips and Hammerheads.

Depending on who you speak with, or what blogs you read, the results of ICCAT, when viewed through the lens of Doha are substantial. Or when viewed through the lens of rapid species depletion at the hands of multi-national fishing fleets with no set international quota systems that can be verified, mixed.

For a fine 15 minutes of eye opening thought we have rounded up some of the after action Blue Blogs and press releases for your review, as always, great analysis:

Da Shark Fiji - Paris Realpolitik!

RTSea Blog - ICCAT & Sharks: a mixed bag of results from meeting

Sonja Fordham - Unprecedented Shark Conservation Action Taken

Ya Like Dags? - Highs and Lows from the ICCAT

Sea Notes - Black Friday for Bluefin

Southern Fried Science - Sharks get new protections at ICCAT

Shark Diving Azores...White Sharks?

If underwater photographer Jan Reyniers has his way the Azores will soon be known as a top notch destination for Blues and Makos.

Perhaps Great Whites in the mix as well, as rumors of these critters cruising the backside of the Azores have been drifting through the shark community for many years now.

Here's the website for your review.

It looks from all intents that they will be running a "sharks first" operation offshore in crystal clear waters.

Wishing them the best of luck in the new shark endeavor.

Image by Jan Reyniers

At the start line - Tracking sharks

Off the coast of Ireland Blue sharks (Prionace glauca) come under scrutiny:

THE ODYSSEY undertaken by two female blue sharks from Irish waters around the north Atlantic this winter is being tracked by University College Cork (UCC) scientists, following a successful tagging project off the south coast.

The two sharks were named Granuaile and Queen Méabh by the UCC team during the encounter off Cork’s Old Head of Kinsale a week ago.

While blue sharks have been tagged here before, this marks the first satellite-tracking of the fish with archival “pop-up” tags. Such tags detach after a specific time period, having collected and stored data on temperature, depth and light as the sharks migrate.

UCC scientist Dr Tom Doyle of the university’s Coastal and Marine Resources Centre hopes that the two sharks will “capture the imagination of Irish school children” during their voyage and will also raise awareness about the need for conservation.

Dr Doyle, who is an expert in tracking marine species including leatherback sea turtles and oceanic sunfish, says both sharks face a “real challenge to survive and reproduce in the coming years”, as blue sharks were caught for their fins.

Complete Story.

Nantucket Shark Divers - Sustainable Media?

Editors Note: Rarely do we change blog entries. Today we did in the best interests of the industry.

The original post was about poor media handling, a subject we have been on more than once and once again faced with as images surfaced of industry members doing questionable things with sharks.

The owner of Nantucket Shark Diving, who we have been supportive of pulled the images today realizing his role in the global shark diving world was not just limited to Nantucket.

Kudos mate, that's industry leadership!

Our original post also had a small quote from a lengthy letter by the Humane Society USA which we will re-post here. As it turns out the Humane Society, in what can only be described as a "senior moment" sent a letter to the rabid anti-shark diving folks and politicians on both Maui and Oahu lending their weight against the entire commercial shark diving industry:


"Feeding wildlife of any species is detrimental to the species, as has
been demonstrated in instances as varied as feeding dolphins and
feeding bears. While I am sure that there are conscientious operators
who do not chum for/feed sharks, there are certainly instances in
which the ban is being violated. It is hard when a few rotten apples
spoil the whole barrel, but regulations are unfortunately directed to
the lowest common denominator (i.e., the need for automobile speed
regulations is not because most people are not sensible, it is because
some are reckless and there is a need to curb the behavior)."

For a conservation organization that works on shark issues, we're not sure how the Humane Society reconciles our industries efforts to preserve sharks via conservation efforts worldwide.

Instead here's a quick letter from NSD, who despite some early media malfunctions, have grown into one of the only operations on the East coast for great shark diving:

Nantucket Shark Divers is gearing up to become a full circle shark diving operation starting up in June of 2010. We will keep you updated with our progress. With an abundance of sharks in the area and warm offshore waters found within 10 miles of the shoreline this is a prime destination to dive with sharks on the Northeastern seaboard. Our operation specializes in taking: divers, researchers, topside viewers, and photographers out to view sharks using a respectful and humane approach to our expeditions. On a side note as a shark dive operator in the area I feel it is important to mention the recent media activity centered around the presence of great white sharks in Cape Cod waters in early September 2009.

I was very pleased to see the vast majority of legitimate media taken from the event was centered around the positives of having these sharks around our coastline. Not focusing on the minute dangers these sharks posed but the remarkable possibility to research and witness these endangered animals themselves. To me there seems to be a more positive outlook on sharks within the past few years, moving from a highly negative outlook toward a public interest and involvement through favored conservation by the public due to the dyer circumstances of sharks being brought to the public eye. I believe sharks are seen more as something to be protected and left alone in recent years than something that must be killed, and very deservedly so.

This has to be largely due to the amount of research and familiarity we have begun to see pertaining to these animals. The spectacle of white sharks around the beaches of Cape Cod brought on interviews about research and science, not danger and fear. Hundreds if not thousands of people drove to the beaches to catch a glimpse of the animals out of pure curiosity not horror, and most of the locals in the area simply replied "they've always been here" when asked about the sharks swimming just off the beaches. As an operator in the area I feel it is strongly important to point out that we do not condone any sort of behavior that interrupts the natural behavior of sharks. For us it is all about providing a way for the public to become knowledgeable about one of the worlds most endangered and critical animals by showing them the animals themselves. There is no room for irresponsible operators or actions with sharks as it does a huge disservice to the animals and businesses themselves.

The last thing these misunderstood animals needs is more media aimed to portray them in a negative light. Just for the record all of our shark diving occurs 10 or more miles from any beach, no fishing of any kind is allowed, and close contact with sharks is prohibited by divers. For more detailed information about our operation and what we can offer please visit www.brohrer.blogspot.com

Cheers,
Bryce Rohrer