Shark Enrichment

Our volunteers enjoyed a great shark enrichment today with graduate student Mark Royer from the Holland Lab.  We learned about all of the different kinds of research the lab is doing including information on shark tags and the process of tagging them, as well as threats to sharks worldwide. 

Mark talked about tiger sharks and how a few were tagged with pulse acoustic transmitters which can be detected by underwater listening stations up to 1000 meters away.  The receiver records which shark has passed by and saves the data until the receiver can be retrieved by divers.



He also talked about the tri-axial accelerometer which can measure the acceleration of a shark in 3-D.  With the the tri-axial accelerometer you can tell which way the shark is turning or if it is descending or ascending. 




Mark showed us a great video on shark finning which features his lab in action.  For those of you that missed it or for those who would like to see it again, you can find the video on iTunes by searching Dan Rather Reports Season 7, All for a Bowl of Soup.

Aloha,
Deena
Education Intern

Image of Enrichment - Sal Pagliaro, Images of sharks with tags from Dr. Carl Meyer's website.