Saturday 10 August 2013

Day 8

As it's #Sharkweek we decided to watch a shark themed movie. We watched some of the documentary 'Shark Water' and had a bit of a debate about the shark finning trade and the wrongful nature of cutting a fin off a shark and throwing it back into the ocean to die. The majority of sharks fins are used to make an Asian delicacy called shark fin soup. Tens of millions of sharks die each year in this way. We learned last week that sharks are apex predators and are needed in the ocean food web to keep things in balance. Sharks pick off all the sick and old fish keeping stocks healthy and also control the numbers of other species. As long as shark fin soup remains 'fashionable', shark populations continue to be seriously impacted with some species close to extinction.

Shark fins drying in sun in Taiwan (photo credit Shawn Heinrichs for the Pew Environment Group



The interns have also learned how to track the most recently tagged basking shark by the Irish Basking Shark Study Group (www.baskingshark.ie) using the animal tracking website www.seaturtle.org. We produced a picture of the tracks made by the shark tagged off Malin Head. Each point is a coordinate obtained when the shark comes to the surface to feed and the satellite tag on the sharks fin gets a satellite fix (as GPS does not transmit in water). We discussed the possible reasons behind it's movements and how its important to learn where the sharks spend their time and how long they spend on the surface feeding.

Shark track made using the positions given by the satellite tag

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