WEBVTT
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Hi, everyone.
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Thank you so much for joining us today for our webinar
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"Shivers in the Graveyard of the Atlantic - Sharks!"
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I'm Shannon Ricles, the Education and Outreach Coordinator
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for Monitor and Mallows Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.
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And I'm gonna be your host today.
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And joining me as host is also Mark Losavio,
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the Media and Outreach Coordinator
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for Monitor and Mallows Bay National Marine Sanctuaries.
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This webinar is brought to you
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by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
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in collaboration with the North Carolina
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Office of State Archeology.
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Partnering since 1975, NOAA and the State of North Carolina
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worked to research, honor and protect the hallmark
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of North Carolina's underwater cultural heritage shipwrecks.
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These shipwrecks hold information about the ever-changing
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technologies and culture and physical landscapes.
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They serve as uniquely accessible underwater museums
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and a memorial to generations of mariners who lived,
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died and worked and fought off our shores.
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This is one of the many webinars that we have offered
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in the past and will be offering in the coming months
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for the "Submerged North Carolina" webinar series,
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which is in collaboration with
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the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology.
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Now, Monitor is just one of 15 national marine sanctuaries
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and two marine national monuments
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in the National Marine Sanctuary system.
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The system encompasses more than 620,000 square miles
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of marine and Great Lakes waters from Washington state...
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Whoops, sorry about that.
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From Washington state to Florida Keys,
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and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.
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Now, during the presentation,
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all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
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You are welcome to type in questions for the presenters
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into the question box at the bottom of your control panel
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on the right hand side of your screen.
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This is the same screen you can let us know
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about any technical difficulties you might be having.
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We'll monitor that box and we'll respond
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to any technical difficulties that we can
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just as quickly as possible.
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So, we welcome today...
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I'm sorry, my computer's doing its own thing.
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So, today, we welcome Dr. Carol Price,
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the Conservation Research Coordinator
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for North Carolina Aquariums,
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where she develops, conducts and oversees research
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and field work that aim to protect species and habitats
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of high conservation needs.
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Carol, I'm gonna turn it over to you.
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It is all yours.
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Let me change presenters.
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There you go.
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And Carol, I believe you're...
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Okay, now you're unmuted.
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Yeah, I just got it unmuted.
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So, thank you so much, Shannon and Mark.
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I wanna start by saying thank you so much
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for this opportunity to share my work with you guys
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and for the great technical support you've provided
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in getting this talk set up and everything.
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And I wanna also thank all the people who've tuned in today.
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So thanks for coming to spend some time with me today
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while I tell you the story of this really cool shark work
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that I get to do.
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So I work for the North Carolina Aquariums.
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We have three locations in North Carolina,
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on the Northern, Central and Southern coasts,
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and I hope that sometime you get to go visit those,
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and visit the sand tiger sharks that we have there.
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But let me tell you a little bit about them.
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So this is the species that I study, the sand tiger shark.
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It is a native species to North Carolina,
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and this is what it looks like.
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It's a kind of a large shark.
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They get up to about eight feet, six to eight, nine feet,
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and they have this beautiful gray coloration
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with these speckle patterns on the side.
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And just keep in mind those speckle patterns
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because those become very important later on.
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These are pretty common off our coast,
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and some interesting things about them
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is that they give live birth.
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So the females will have one to two pups per year
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or every other year, every two years.
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And they're often found in association with shipwrecks
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where they are very, very tolerant of interactions
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with human divers, as you can see here.
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And this is important for our research.
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Now I wanna talk about why I use the word shivers
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in the title of my presentation today.
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So it turns out that if you get a bunch of sharks together,
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they are actually called a shiver.
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And so when you're talking about sharks
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in the graveyard of the Atlantic,
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that's a pretty great title that you can add
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to your presentation.
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So in addition to seeing these sharks offshore
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if you go diving,
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one of the places that probably most people get to interact
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with this shark and see these sharks up close
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is in aquariums, not just in North Carolina,
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but all over the United States and even worldwide.
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And wherever people see them,
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they're always a fan favorite because they're large sharks,
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they have this big toothy grin,
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and they're just very charismatic.
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But they're great for aquariums and people like to see them;
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they're tolerant of other fish,
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as well as other sharks in their habitats.
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And so, they're great sharks to have.
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And importantly, we can then use people's excitement
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and enthusiasm and passion for these sharks to kind of,
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as a launchpad, to talk about really important needs,
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risks to these sharks in the wild,
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and the importance of conserving shark and ray species
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in the U.S. as well as globally.
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So it's just a great way to open up those conversations.
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And the North Carolina Aquariums are part of a group
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of aquariums and zoos in the United States
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called the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
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And this is an accreditation organization.
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And the idea is that being part of this group
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means that we are meeting the highest standards of care
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for animals in our collection, animals in our care,
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but that we are also promoting the conservation
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of these animals in the wild,
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and we're doing that collectively.
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So by coming together through AZA,
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we can participate in programs
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like Saving Animals From Extinction, SAFE.
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There is a SAFE for sharks and rays, for example.
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And the idea is that we can really focus our energies
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on the species that need the most help.
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And by pulling together with other collaborators
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in the research fields, as well as within AZA,
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we can really just expand our input, expand our reach,
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and have very collective messages for our public,
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and amplify the good work that we can do.
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And this is really important,
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not all species occur globally;
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some of them are local species.
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And SAFE and AZA are a way that we can support both
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species that are locally important,
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as well as the ones that are globally imperiled.
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And the sand tiger shark is an example
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of a species like that.
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You can see here they have almost a worldwide distribution,
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the places there in that sort of orangy color
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is where historically sand tiger sharks are known to occur.
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But in some places, there you can see,
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they are critically endangered and their populations
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have been really, really, really depleted over the years.
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Fortunately, off of our coast,
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off of North America on the Atlantic coast there,
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we do still have a strong population.
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However, it has declined significantly
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over the past few decades.
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So we think it might be declined by as much as 75%.
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And so that makes our research program Spot A Shark USA
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really, really important and relevant for this species
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off of U.S. waters.
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And so, why specifically North Carolina?
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Well, it has to do with our history.
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So this is a really interesting connection
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between archaeology and biology.
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There are hundreds, if not thousands of shipwrecks
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off of the coast of North Carolina.
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This map doesn't show all of 'em,
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but it kind of does show some of the major ones,
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and you can see there's shipwrecks all over the place.
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And as it turns out,
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sand tiger sharks really like these shipwrecks.
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And so we can take advantage of that
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because people also love to come and dive.
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They come to North Carolina from all over the world
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to go dive, to see these shipwrecks,
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learn about the history, but also to visit the sharks.
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And that was how Spot A Shark USA got started.
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Hap Fatzinger, he's one of the Aquarium Directors here,
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saw a really great opportunity to connect
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our very dedicated community of divers
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with this need to understand more about this shark
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and collect data that can be useful
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for conservation of the species.
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So to that end, Spot A Shark USA started a few years ago.
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And the basically how this program works
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is we ask citizen community divers when they go out,
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when they come to North Carolina,
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when they go out and visit these shipwrecks
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to take photographs of the sand tiger sharks that they see.
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And we give them a little bit of information
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about how to do that safely and how to get photographs
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that are gonna be the most useful for our research.
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Of course we want everybody to be safe
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and we want them to be respectful of the sharks.
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So the idea is to approach the sharks
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in a very slow and respectful manner,
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not to touch them, not to get too close,
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to respect their space and of course, to stay safe,
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but to be able to get these pictures
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of the sides of the shark
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where we can see those spot patterns.
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And then those images can be uploaded,
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and I'll show you a little bit more about that
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in just a minute.
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And so this is what it looks like.
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You can see these sharks are very tolerant of humans
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being close enough to them that we can get these
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amazing photographs of them while they're out here diving.
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And we have divers; some of them are just
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recreational divers that come out and some of them
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are very experienced divers.
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And in fact, we even have professional photographers
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that donate a lot of pictures to us like Tanya Houppermans.
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And all of these photographs are really, really useful
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for our data.
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And we could not do this without the help
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of our citizen divers.
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And so, after they take their photographs,
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it's pretty easy to participate.
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You visit our website, spotasharkusa.com,
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and we have a form that you fill out.
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You drag your images over to the box,
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just drop 'em right in there.
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And then you give us a little bit of information
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about yourself, give us your email address
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so we can send you updates about your sharks,
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and then let us know what day you were diving
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when you saw that shark,
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and tell us where you photographed that shark.
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There's also opportunities to input
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a whole lot of additional information
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if you happen to collect it.
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But really we just need the date and location.
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That's sort of the basics that we need.
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And then that data can be used in our photo library.
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The other way that we can collect information about sharks
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in their images is by directly engaging with divers
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at the dive shops.
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This is a really fun student project.
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Every year, every semester, every summer,
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I have undergraduate students who help me on Spot A Shark.
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And in the summers, one of the most fun projects
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is to actually meet the boats from the dive shops
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as they're coming back in.
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The crew lets the divers on the boat know
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that they're gonna be researchers there to get pictures,
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to collect images from them.
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And then students, like the ones posted here,
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Mikalyla Beeson, she's gonna come up again in a few minutes
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for a different project.
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And then yes, I actually have two students named Ben.
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So the Bens may show up at the dive shop as well,
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and just be there to pull SD cards
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straight out of people's cameras.
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It just kind of streamlines the process,
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makes it a little bit simpler so we can get those pictures
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00:12:41.400 --> 00:12:43.110
right there on the dock side.
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00:12:43.110 --> 00:12:44.880
It makes it just a little bit easier
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00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:47.070
and it gives divers a chance to interact
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00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:49.560
with the research team and learn a little bit more
266
00:12:49.560 --> 00:12:50.703
about our project.
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00:12:51.780 --> 00:12:53.640
So, once we've collected these images,
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00:12:53.640 --> 00:12:56.130
either from the web or in-person,
269
00:12:56.130 --> 00:12:59.100
let me share with you a minute like just how simple
270
00:12:59.100 --> 00:13:00.480
Spot A Shark is.
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This is a very basic idea here.
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We're all familiar with human fingerprints
273
00:13:07.080 --> 00:13:08.250
that are really unique.
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00:13:08.250 --> 00:13:09.900
The patterns are so unique,
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they're individual to every human
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00:13:12.630 --> 00:13:14.850
and relatively easy to study.
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00:13:14.850 --> 00:13:17.580
And those spots, remember those spots,
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I said to remember about those,
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00:13:18.930 --> 00:13:22.350
those spots patterns on the sides of sharks
280
00:13:22.350 --> 00:13:27.350
are just as unique to sharks as our fingerprints are to us.
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00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:30.960
And so if we can map those spot patterns,
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00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:34.800
that's basically like getting a unique ID for that shark
283
00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:36.483
and we never have to touch it.
284
00:13:37.650 --> 00:13:42.120
This is a completely noninvasive way to study these sharks.
285
00:13:42.120 --> 00:13:45.480
We don't have to capture them or mark them
286
00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.357
or tag them in any way; they come with their own marks.
287
00:13:48.357 --> 00:13:51.123
And we just sort of take advantage of that.
288
00:13:52.380 --> 00:13:54.210
So, what does that look like then
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00:13:54.210 --> 00:13:57.030
when it's on a real photograph?
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00:13:57.030 --> 00:14:02.030
So we use a software from Wildbook that we can upload
291
00:14:03.870 --> 00:14:07.710
the photos and then it puts it into this software package
292
00:14:07.710 --> 00:14:10.170
and we can actually map the shark's spots.
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00:14:10.170 --> 00:14:13.410
So the first thing we do is we tell the algorithm
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00:14:13.410 --> 00:14:16.200
where the dorsal fins are and the pelvic fin
295
00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:18.210
as sort of reference points.
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00:14:18.210 --> 00:14:20.520
You can see those in those white circles.
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00:14:20.520 --> 00:14:23.490
And then the yellow dots are where we put
298
00:14:23.490 --> 00:14:25.440
dots over the spots.
299
00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:28.410
And we've gotta map between eight and 30 spots
300
00:14:28.410 --> 00:14:31.680
is sort of the ideal sweet zone.
301
00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:34.920
And when we map those, we get that unique spot pattern.
302
00:14:34.920 --> 00:14:37.440
We send that spot map, as we call it,
303
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:40.230
to a server somewhere in the Rocky Mountains,
304
00:14:40.230 --> 00:14:42.900
I'm not exactly sure where, but somewhere in the Rockies,
305
00:14:42.900 --> 00:14:47.220
and it compares this spot map to every other spot map
306
00:14:47.220 --> 00:14:50.370
pattern in our database.
307
00:14:50.370 --> 00:14:53.010
As you can imagine, that takes a few minutes,
308
00:14:53.010 --> 00:14:56.970
but then what we get back is a list of sharks
309
00:14:56.970 --> 00:14:58.740
that are possible matches.
310
00:14:58.740 --> 00:15:01.170
So this tells us if this shark has been seen before
311
00:15:01.170 --> 00:15:02.610
or if it's a new shark.
312
00:15:02.610 --> 00:15:04.050
And this is kind of what that looks like.
313
00:15:04.050 --> 00:15:09.050
So you can see those colored dots on the side of the shark
314
00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:12.030
are where the program thinks we might
315
00:15:12.030 --> 00:15:15.180
have a matching pattern, but it still takes the human eye.
316
00:15:15.180 --> 00:15:19.500
My students or I, my research assistants still have to use
317
00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:22.290
the human eye to make the final determination
318
00:15:22.290 --> 00:15:25.530
on whether or not this is a match or a new shark.
319
00:15:25.530 --> 00:15:29.760
So in this one, you can see the pattern is kind of similar,
320
00:15:29.760 --> 00:15:34.080
but if you note that purple spot towards the tail
321
00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:35.730
of the shark on the left,
322
00:15:35.730 --> 00:15:38.130
you can see it's like at the base of the tail there.
323
00:15:38.130 --> 00:15:41.950
But if you compare where the same spot,
324
00:15:41.950 --> 00:15:45.060
where the computer thinks the same spot is,
325
00:15:45.060 --> 00:15:47.190
you can see it's under that second dorsal fin.
326
00:15:47.190 --> 00:15:50.010
So we would say this is not a match.
327
00:15:50.010 --> 00:15:52.800
So you can see why the computer only helps us.
328
00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:53.940
It gets us in the doorway,
329
00:15:53.940 --> 00:15:56.280
but we still have to spend a lot of time
330
00:15:56.280 --> 00:15:57.870
very carefully looking at these
331
00:15:57.870 --> 00:16:00.120
and sort of making the final assessment.
332
00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:02.130
But sometimes we get lucky.
333
00:16:02.130 --> 00:16:05.400
And this is the exciting part is when we get a match.
334
00:16:05.400 --> 00:16:07.560
So, for example, here,
335
00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:10.500
we had a shark that was seen on one of our shipwrecks,
336
00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:14.730
the Aeolus in September of 2016.
337
00:16:14.730 --> 00:16:17.430
It has this very unique spot pattern there,
338
00:16:17.430 --> 00:16:20.430
and also sort of towards the back of its body
339
00:16:20.430 --> 00:16:22.140
you can see another nice cluster
340
00:16:22.140 --> 00:16:25.442
of very definitive spot patterns there.
341
00:16:25.442 --> 00:16:28.590
And you can see that this is a matching image.
342
00:16:28.590 --> 00:16:30.360
So we would call this a match.
343
00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.930
And that second picture was taken on the Aeolus,
344
00:16:33.930 --> 00:16:37.593
same ship wreck, but 10 months apart.
345
00:16:38.520 --> 00:16:42.090
So, understanding, well, did that shark
346
00:16:42.090 --> 00:16:43.290
stay there the whole time?
347
00:16:43.290 --> 00:16:44.123
We don't know.
348
00:16:44.123 --> 00:16:45.630
Did it migrate somewhere else?
349
00:16:45.630 --> 00:16:46.463
We don't know.
350
00:16:46.463 --> 00:16:49.680
We don't know what it did between September and July,
351
00:16:49.680 --> 00:16:52.620
but we do know that that shark
352
00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:57.570
was in this same location twice, 10 months apart.
353
00:16:57.570 --> 00:17:00.030
So this data is the kind of data
354
00:17:00.030 --> 00:17:01.653
that we're trying to collect.
355
00:17:02.520 --> 00:17:05.730
We've been working on this pretty hard for about three,
356
00:17:05.730 --> 00:17:07.500
three and a half, four years.
357
00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:10.980
And so I've just done a huge download of the data
358
00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:13.350
to try to see what all we can learn
359
00:17:13.350 --> 00:17:15.840
from all of these pictures that people have sent us.
360
00:17:15.840 --> 00:17:18.930
And I haven't finished analyzing everything yet,
361
00:17:18.930 --> 00:17:20.340
but I did wanna share with you
362
00:17:20.340 --> 00:17:23.250
just a few of the things that we...
363
00:17:23.250 --> 00:17:28.050
Sort of summary pieces of information that we do have.
364
00:17:28.050 --> 00:17:31.920
So to date, we have over 2,000 individual
365
00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:35.430
spot mapped sharks, which is huge.
366
00:17:35.430 --> 00:17:38.250
That's an enormous dataset to have.
367
00:17:38.250 --> 00:17:39.810
They go back many years.
368
00:17:39.810 --> 00:17:43.620
We have photos that divers had in their collection.
369
00:17:43.620 --> 00:17:46.920
So our records go back more than four or five years.
370
00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:48.993
They go back about 10 to 12 years.
371
00:17:50.250 --> 00:17:51.720
We have information on sharks
372
00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:55.200
from over 30 shipwrecks in North Carolina,
373
00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:58.170
as well as some natural hard bottom areas.
374
00:17:58.170 --> 00:18:01.590
So these are places where there's natural hard reef-like
375
00:18:01.590 --> 00:18:03.510
material on the bottom of the ocean,
376
00:18:03.510 --> 00:18:05.943
where sharks also are sometimes found.
377
00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:10.110
And we have over 100 sharks that we have seen
378
00:18:10.110 --> 00:18:12.000
on more than one occasion.
379
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:17.000
So most of these sharks are seen twice,
380
00:18:17.070 --> 00:18:20.370
have been seen maybe twice, often on the same wreck,
381
00:18:20.370 --> 00:18:24.243
and often within a few days of the first encounter.
382
00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:27.720
However, we do have some that we have seen four,
383
00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:31.620
five, six, 12 times, sometimes at the same site,
384
00:18:31.620 --> 00:18:33.243
sometimes at different sites.
385
00:18:34.320 --> 00:18:38.310
And very interestingly, it can range from one day
386
00:18:38.310 --> 00:18:40.680
between sightings or at liberty,
387
00:18:40.680 --> 00:18:44.250
up to over 2,000 days between sightings.
388
00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:49.020
That is almost six years between the first, second,
389
00:18:49.020 --> 00:18:50.790
and third, fourth sighting.
390
00:18:50.790 --> 00:18:54.630
And it's these repeated encounters over time
391
00:18:54.630 --> 00:18:57.510
that will really help us understand a lot more
392
00:18:57.510 --> 00:19:00.033
about how these sharks are using these spaces.
393
00:19:01.140 --> 00:19:04.650
One of the fascinating things that we've been able to
394
00:19:04.650 --> 00:19:08.910
find out is that about 60% of the sharks
395
00:19:08.910 --> 00:19:10.440
that we're seeing are female.
396
00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:14.250
Now we can't identify male and female sharks
397
00:19:14.250 --> 00:19:15.480
in every single picture.
398
00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.030
Sometimes we don't have the camera angle
399
00:19:18.030 --> 00:19:20.847
and we have to label those as "sex unknown,"
400
00:19:21.810 --> 00:19:24.270
but of the sharks that we can tell,
401
00:19:24.270 --> 00:19:27.344
a lot of them are females.
402
00:19:27.344 --> 00:19:32.344
About 25% or so are unknown.
403
00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:36.210
And about 15 or 16% are males.
404
00:19:36.210 --> 00:19:38.370
So we're seeing, we know that these habitats
405
00:19:38.370 --> 00:19:42.060
are especially important for female sharks.
406
00:19:42.060 --> 00:19:47.060
And so to give you a little idea of how important
407
00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:51.720
this might be, I'm actually gonna turn over control
408
00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:55.080
briefly to Mark, who's gonna show you a video
409
00:19:55.080 --> 00:20:00.080
that was taken off of our coast last fall,
410
00:20:00.090 --> 00:20:03.120
or end of summer, beginning of fall.
411
00:20:03.120 --> 00:20:05.940
He's gonna show you the video twice because it's fast,
412
00:20:05.940 --> 00:20:06.900
it goes by fast.
413
00:20:06.900 --> 00:20:08.650
You're gonna see a shark coming in,
414
00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:12.540
but take a look at that shark
415
00:20:12.540 --> 00:20:16.350
and see if you see anything really cool happen.
416
00:20:16.350 --> 00:20:17.791
All right, Mark.
417
00:20:17.791 --> 00:20:22.791
(water bubbling)
(oxygen hissing)
418
00:20:45.388 --> 00:20:50.388
(water bubbling)
(oxygen hissing)
419
00:21:14.820 --> 00:21:15.653
All right.
420
00:21:15.653 --> 00:21:16.590
Thank you, Mark.
421
00:21:16.590 --> 00:21:20.220
So what you saw there was a video
422
00:21:20.220 --> 00:21:24.240
that one of our Diving Safety Officers was able to shoot,
423
00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.240
and that is actually a female sand tiger shark
424
00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:31.470
with what we think is a baby shark inside of her.
425
00:21:31.470 --> 00:21:35.430
And what you could see was the side of her body wobbling
426
00:21:35.430 --> 00:21:37.170
as she's making that turn,
427
00:21:37.170 --> 00:21:40.470
seeing that pup moving inside of her.
428
00:21:40.470 --> 00:21:44.760
So it's evidence like this that is helping us
429
00:21:44.760 --> 00:21:49.650
to gain a further understanding of these sharks,
430
00:21:49.650 --> 00:21:50.970
the importance of this habitat,
431
00:21:50.970 --> 00:21:52.960
but also to confirm hypotheses
432
00:21:53.957 --> 00:21:55.800
that have been around a long time
433
00:21:55.800 --> 00:21:57.270
from divers in the community,
434
00:21:57.270 --> 00:22:00.510
from scientists and researchers about the importance
435
00:22:00.510 --> 00:22:02.130
of this habitat for this species.
436
00:22:02.130 --> 00:22:03.690
We know that they mate here.
437
00:22:03.690 --> 00:22:05.790
We have evidence like what you saw in the video
438
00:22:05.790 --> 00:22:08.610
that they are pregnant or gestating while they're here.
439
00:22:08.610 --> 00:22:12.210
And there's even some suggestion that they might
440
00:22:12.210 --> 00:22:13.440
even be giving birth here.
441
00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:15.240
Although we don't have any confirmation
442
00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:17.640
of where those pupping grounds might be.
443
00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:22.263
But of course, we're definitely trying to look for those.
444
00:22:23.700 --> 00:22:25.860
In addition to the spot mapping,
445
00:22:25.860 --> 00:22:27.600
we get a lot of other information
446
00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:30.330
like stuff from the videos, information from the videos.
447
00:22:30.330 --> 00:22:32.820
And I wanna spend just a little bit of time on a project
448
00:22:32.820 --> 00:22:35.910
that one of my superstar students pictured here,
449
00:22:35.910 --> 00:22:38.040
Mikalyla Beeson, who's on the right,
450
00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:41.310
has been working on for her honors thesis project.
451
00:22:41.310 --> 00:22:44.280
She just graduated from NC State University
452
00:22:44.280 --> 00:22:46.680
in the spring of 2022.
453
00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:47.910
And she worked very closely
454
00:22:47.910 --> 00:22:51.210
with one of our Diving Safety Officers, Shawn Harper,
455
00:22:51.210 --> 00:22:54.903
who collected videos in November of 2020.
456
00:22:56.310 --> 00:23:00.600
He filmed five of his dives that he did at four wreck sites.
457
00:23:00.600 --> 00:23:05.280
And what Mikalyla did was use these videos to map
458
00:23:05.280 --> 00:23:08.850
the shark cloud around the shipwrecks that he was at.
459
00:23:08.850 --> 00:23:11.340
So to look very closely at these videos
460
00:23:11.340 --> 00:23:14.070
to see how the sharks distributed themselves
461
00:23:14.070 --> 00:23:15.060
around the shipwreck,
462
00:23:15.060 --> 00:23:18.060
just to kind of learn even more about that.
463
00:23:18.060 --> 00:23:20.880
She watched a lot of hours of video.
464
00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:22.710
So these two wrecks,
465
00:23:22.710 --> 00:23:25.980
I'm gonna show you two of her maps that she built
466
00:23:25.980 --> 00:23:29.130
at the Keshena and at the Dixie Arrow.
467
00:23:29.130 --> 00:23:34.097
These are off the Outer Banks and they are both vessels
468
00:23:35.070 --> 00:23:38.250
that they've been underwater and on the sea floor
469
00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:41.787
for about the same amount of time, since the 1940s.
470
00:23:41.787 --> 00:23:45.780
The Keshena is about 140 feet long,
471
00:23:45.780 --> 00:23:50.130
and she lies in 75 to 90 feet of water.
472
00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:53.310
The other shipwreck we'll show you about today,
473
00:23:53.310 --> 00:23:56.310
show you today is the Dixie Arrow.
474
00:23:56.310 --> 00:24:00.150
These shipwrecks are about five miles apart, roughly,
475
00:24:00.150 --> 00:24:05.070
and the Dixie Arrow also sunk off our coast in 1942.
476
00:24:05.070 --> 00:24:08.673
This is again where history and biology come together.
477
00:24:10.200 --> 00:24:12.420
And the Dixie Arrow is a much larger vessel.
478
00:24:12.420 --> 00:24:15.660
So she was 468 feet,
479
00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:18.570
but she sits in about the same depth of water,
480
00:24:18.570 --> 00:24:20.160
70 to 90 feet.
481
00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:25.160
So, very similar habitats, very different in their size,
482
00:24:25.560 --> 00:24:30.000
but a lot of similarities as well.
483
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:31.920
So if we look at the Keshena,
484
00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:34.050
there's a picture of how she looked
485
00:24:34.050 --> 00:24:35.910
when she was still in service.
486
00:24:35.910 --> 00:24:38.850
Here's a photograph of her on the sea floor.
487
00:24:38.850 --> 00:24:43.350
You're looking here at the bow, which is here.
488
00:24:43.350 --> 00:24:45.270
And so what you're gonna see is,
489
00:24:45.270 --> 00:24:47.160
I'm just gonna kind of click through,
490
00:24:47.160 --> 00:24:49.680
and you'll see here is the anchor point where
491
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:54.660
Shawn tied up to the wreck and descended to...
492
00:24:54.660 --> 00:24:57.300
He was actually on a dive to go work on some equipment
493
00:24:57.300 --> 00:25:01.290
that we have on this ship
494
00:25:01.290 --> 00:25:03.630
as part of some acoustic telemetry work we were doing.
495
00:25:03.630 --> 00:25:08.280
So he was servicing the telemetry equipment out here.
496
00:25:08.280 --> 00:25:12.510
So he swam across over to the port side of this vessel.
497
00:25:12.510 --> 00:25:15.780
And you can see where the sharks are distributed.
498
00:25:15.780 --> 00:25:18.090
If you look, they're color coded.
499
00:25:18.090 --> 00:25:21.150
So orange sharks, we can't tell if it's a male or a female.
500
00:25:21.150 --> 00:25:22.740
The hot pink ones are a female.
501
00:25:22.740 --> 00:25:24.360
The blue ones are male.
502
00:25:24.360 --> 00:25:26.970
And then we have a couple of sharks that showed up
503
00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:28.677
that actually have external tags on them.
504
00:25:28.677 --> 00:25:32.010
And so we've noted in green where we have those.
505
00:25:32.010 --> 00:25:36.030
You can see where that equipment was attached to the ship
506
00:25:36.030 --> 00:25:38.910
and where we encountered a lionfish.
507
00:25:38.910 --> 00:25:41.550
And once he was finished with his work,
508
00:25:41.550 --> 00:25:44.460
he swam over to the starboard side of the vessel
509
00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:47.790
and swam sort of back up towards the bow.
510
00:25:47.790 --> 00:25:50.940
You can see he spotted a sea turtle there,
511
00:25:50.940 --> 00:25:53.490
hanging out right next to the ship,
512
00:25:53.490 --> 00:25:55.080
and then he continued on.
513
00:25:55.080 --> 00:25:59.910
So you can see what Mikalyla did was to note the location
514
00:25:59.910 --> 00:26:02.490
of these sharks relative to the shipwreck,
515
00:26:02.490 --> 00:26:05.670
as well as whether it was males or females.
516
00:26:05.670 --> 00:26:07.680
And then, so throughout this dive,
517
00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:11.250
we're able to see the distribution of these sharks
518
00:26:11.250 --> 00:26:13.080
around the shipwreck.
519
00:26:13.080 --> 00:26:16.170
She did the same thing with the Dixie Arrow.
520
00:26:16.170 --> 00:26:19.470
Sorry, on the Keshena, she saw 71 sharks.
521
00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:21.810
On the Dixie Arrow, which is a much larger vessel,
522
00:26:21.810 --> 00:26:24.090
she saw almost 300 sharks.
523
00:26:24.090 --> 00:26:27.000
So just imagine how many times she had to watch this video
524
00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:30.330
to be able to map the location of each of those sharks.
525
00:26:30.330 --> 00:26:32.940
This is what the Keshena looked like in port.
526
00:26:32.940 --> 00:26:34.560
Or I'm sorry, the Dixie Arrow looked like
527
00:26:34.560 --> 00:26:35.973
when she was in port.
528
00:26:36.930 --> 00:26:40.440
And here is what she looks like at the sea floor.
529
00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:43.920
And you can see this is these sort of round structures
530
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:47.400
that you can see in the high resolution map
531
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:48.780
there at the stern.
532
00:26:48.780 --> 00:26:51.903
So these are maps that we got from the NOAAs,
533
00:26:53.280 --> 00:26:55.650
the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
534
00:26:55.650 --> 00:26:58.170
They have these wonderful high resolution maps
535
00:26:58.170 --> 00:26:59.003
of these shipwrecks.
536
00:26:59.003 --> 00:27:01.950
And so we're able to use those to sort of geo-reference
537
00:27:01.950 --> 00:27:03.660
where the sharks were in the video
538
00:27:03.660 --> 00:27:06.450
because the maps are so exact.
539
00:27:06.450 --> 00:27:10.110
So again, tying off on the bow,
540
00:27:10.110 --> 00:27:12.930
and then heading out towards the stern.
541
00:27:12.930 --> 00:27:17.310
You can see there were a lot of sharks on here.
542
00:27:17.310 --> 00:27:21.180
Again, about 300 sharks showed up in this video
543
00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:23.373
and lots and lots of sea turtles.
544
00:27:24.870 --> 00:27:28.073
Shawn completed the work that he needed to this time
545
00:27:28.073 --> 00:27:30.270
on the stern of the vessel.
546
00:27:30.270 --> 00:27:32.820
And then he turned around and he came through
547
00:27:32.820 --> 00:27:37.820
and did another sweep up the same side of this vessel,
548
00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:42.210
and was able to document all of these additional sharks.
549
00:27:42.210 --> 00:27:44.850
And so, Mikalyla was very careful to make sure
550
00:27:44.850 --> 00:27:47.700
that these were new sharks that she was seeing
551
00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.340
as the camera angle changed slightly
552
00:27:50.340 --> 00:27:51.843
on that perspective there.
553
00:27:52.980 --> 00:27:55.050
So, as far as I know, this is probably the first time
554
00:27:55.050 --> 00:27:59.730
that anybody's ever put together a map
555
00:27:59.730 --> 00:28:04.730
of the cloud of sharks around boats
556
00:28:04.740 --> 00:28:06.300
or shipwrecks underwater.
557
00:28:06.300 --> 00:28:09.543
So I'm incredibly excited about this work that she's done.
558
00:28:11.310 --> 00:28:14.700
And so, you know, I wanted to show you just real quickly,
559
00:28:14.700 --> 00:28:16.200
a little bit of data that we've been able
560
00:28:16.200 --> 00:28:18.090
to collect from here.
561
00:28:18.090 --> 00:28:20.340
Some differences we saw between those videos.
562
00:28:20.340 --> 00:28:22.140
So you can see those shark clouds,
563
00:28:22.140 --> 00:28:24.840
but if we look at sort of some of the numbers associated
564
00:28:24.840 --> 00:28:27.480
with those behaviors, we can see that on the Keshena,
565
00:28:27.480 --> 00:28:29.370
a lot of the sharks we couldn't tell whether
566
00:28:29.370 --> 00:28:30.960
they were male or female,
567
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:33.510
but of the sharks that we could tell,
568
00:28:33.510 --> 00:28:35.970
most of them were male.
569
00:28:35.970 --> 00:28:38.550
In comparison, on the Dixie Arrow,
570
00:28:38.550 --> 00:28:42.930
most of the sharks that we could determine a sex were female
571
00:28:42.930 --> 00:28:46.650
with a much smaller proportion of male sharks.
572
00:28:46.650 --> 00:28:49.500
So that's a really interesting finding.
573
00:28:49.500 --> 00:28:52.500
In addition, she mapped that location of where
574
00:28:52.500 --> 00:28:55.680
the sharks were relative to the wreck and took note of that.
575
00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:59.370
So she was able to estimate whether the sharks
576
00:28:59.370 --> 00:29:02.820
were next to the wreck, which was within two body lengths,
577
00:29:02.820 --> 00:29:06.990
about five meters of the wreck, or if they were further off.
578
00:29:06.990 --> 00:29:08.310
Now, most of the sharks,
579
00:29:08.310 --> 00:29:10.170
if they were near the wreck like that,
580
00:29:10.170 --> 00:29:14.430
or away from the wreck were above the sand,
581
00:29:14.430 --> 00:29:17.373
but not above the profile of the shipwreck.
582
00:29:18.690 --> 00:29:22.830
And so you see on the Keshena, most of those sharks
583
00:29:22.830 --> 00:29:24.600
were actually away from the wreck.
584
00:29:24.600 --> 00:29:26.610
So more than two body lengths away
585
00:29:26.610 --> 00:29:28.560
from the structure of the wreck.
586
00:29:28.560 --> 00:29:30.300
On the Dixie Arrow, by comparison,
587
00:29:30.300 --> 00:29:32.400
and that's where we saw that high proportion
588
00:29:32.400 --> 00:29:36.570
of female sharks, they were much more tightly associated
589
00:29:36.570 --> 00:29:38.820
with the wreck; right up next to it,
590
00:29:38.820 --> 00:29:41.220
within a couple of body lengths.
591
00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:43.140
Although there were still a few that were on the sand
592
00:29:43.140 --> 00:29:44.160
a little bit further out,
593
00:29:44.160 --> 00:29:46.920
but one thing we noticed is that in both sites,
594
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:49.680
there were fewer sharks, although there were some,
595
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:52.950
that were hovering sort of more above the wreck.
596
00:29:52.950 --> 00:29:57.060
So, we've known that sharks hang out all over the place
597
00:29:57.060 --> 00:30:00.060
on these wrecks, but this is sort of a really,
598
00:30:00.060 --> 00:30:03.630
a first look at trying to quantify
599
00:30:03.630 --> 00:30:06.330
that a little bit more precisely.
600
00:30:06.330 --> 00:30:08.850
So this is the kind of information
601
00:30:08.850 --> 00:30:11.940
that we've been collecting and that I'm currently analyzing,
602
00:30:11.940 --> 00:30:14.190
hopefully to publish, and hopefully maybe even
603
00:30:14.190 --> 00:30:18.033
to share those results in the future with the public.
604
00:30:19.620 --> 00:30:21.840
Which of our shipwrecks of all those shipwrecks
605
00:30:21.840 --> 00:30:22.770
that we have offshore,
606
00:30:22.770 --> 00:30:26.400
which are attracting the most sand tiger sharks?
607
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:29.070
Are males and females using them differently?
608
00:30:29.070 --> 00:30:33.780
And are there seasonal patterns to these habitat preferences
609
00:30:33.780 --> 00:30:37.170
or patterns in their movement ecology?
610
00:30:37.170 --> 00:30:38.940
There's a lot of basics about this species
611
00:30:38.940 --> 00:30:41.490
that we just don't really know for sure.
612
00:30:41.490 --> 00:30:43.740
We've had a lot of stories from divers
613
00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:46.950
that have been watching these sharks for a really long time,
614
00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:48.990
but actually being able to put numbers to this
615
00:30:48.990 --> 00:30:51.450
and actually generating hypotheses
616
00:30:51.450 --> 00:30:55.740
and being able to use data to really get down to the facts
617
00:30:55.740 --> 00:30:58.023
is really fun for this species.
618
00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:01.320
Like I mentioned, with those recaptured sharks,
619
00:31:01.320 --> 00:31:03.990
we'll be able to tell if we're seeing the same sharks
620
00:31:03.990 --> 00:31:05.610
every year or different sharks,
621
00:31:05.610 --> 00:31:07.950
do the same sharks do the same thing every year,
622
00:31:07.950 --> 00:31:10.620
or they change their behavior year to year?
623
00:31:10.620 --> 00:31:13.530
We know that females might only show up every two years
624
00:31:13.530 --> 00:31:16.860
because we know they mate, they have their pups,
625
00:31:16.860 --> 00:31:19.890
only one to two pups every two years.
626
00:31:19.890 --> 00:31:23.100
So we know some of the females migrate
627
00:31:23.100 --> 00:31:24.600
out of North Carolina,
628
00:31:24.600 --> 00:31:26.370
but we're curious when they come back,
629
00:31:26.370 --> 00:31:29.793
do they go to the same wrecks when they come back?
630
00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:36.390
Thinking about how important all of these locations are
631
00:31:36.390 --> 00:31:41.250
for males, females, migratory behavior, to support mating,
632
00:31:41.250 --> 00:31:45.090
reproduction, gestation, and possibly pupping,
633
00:31:45.090 --> 00:31:49.740
really trying to narrow down some of those answers
634
00:31:49.740 --> 00:31:51.930
are what we're hoping to achieve
635
00:31:51.930 --> 00:31:55.050
with this data moving forward.
636
00:31:55.050 --> 00:31:59.700
So, we wanna continue our direct engagement with our divers
637
00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:02.580
and then also integrating the Spot A Shark work
638
00:32:02.580 --> 00:32:05.580
with acoustic tagging data that some of which
639
00:32:05.580 --> 00:32:07.650
the North Carolina Aquariums is collecting,
640
00:32:07.650 --> 00:32:11.877
but also other scientists are also tagging sharks.
641
00:32:11.877 --> 00:32:15.690
And so trying to fit those two different kinds of data
642
00:32:15.690 --> 00:32:19.860
together to start telling us one story
643
00:32:19.860 --> 00:32:22.230
is sort of in the works as well.
644
00:32:22.230 --> 00:32:25.950
And then continuing to analyze video data.
645
00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:27.240
When we have video data,
646
00:32:27.240 --> 00:32:30.540
we can collect so much more information.
647
00:32:30.540 --> 00:32:31.710
And one of the projects,
648
00:32:31.710 --> 00:32:33.990
one of the video data projects that I'm super,
649
00:32:33.990 --> 00:32:38.790
super excited about just finished, just wrapped up.
650
00:32:38.790 --> 00:32:41.370
The Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration,
651
00:32:41.370 --> 00:32:44.430
partnered with National Marine Sanctuaries,
652
00:32:44.430 --> 00:32:45.660
the Monitor Sanctuary,
653
00:32:45.660 --> 00:32:49.170
as well as the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science,
654
00:32:49.170 --> 00:32:51.840
and the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology
655
00:32:51.840 --> 00:32:56.730
to conduct several, a huge mission.
656
00:32:56.730 --> 00:33:00.720
So many, many trips, many days out at sea,
657
00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:05.720
they used an ROV named Yogi to go down and explore.
658
00:33:05.820 --> 00:33:09.330
So hours of footage from multiple shipwrecks
659
00:33:09.330 --> 00:33:12.183
off of our coast, some of which had sand tigers on them.
660
00:33:13.264 --> 00:33:14.610
Some of them were very deep,
661
00:33:14.610 --> 00:33:17.013
just amazing video footage though.
662
00:33:18.150 --> 00:33:19.590
So not only at the Monitor,
663
00:33:19.590 --> 00:33:23.640
but also at other shipwrecks near, in the same area.
664
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:27.150
And using really advanced satellite technology,
665
00:33:27.150 --> 00:33:31.800
they were able to live stream these ROV trips
666
00:33:31.800 --> 00:33:33.540
for the public over the web.
667
00:33:33.540 --> 00:33:37.860
And so, I was really, really grateful to be asked to be
668
00:33:37.860 --> 00:33:40.590
one of the hosts that joined the live streams
669
00:33:40.590 --> 00:33:42.720
to sort of comment on what we were seeing
670
00:33:42.720 --> 00:33:45.420
and to share information about sand tiger sharks
671
00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:46.890
when they were showing up in the video.
672
00:33:46.890 --> 00:33:50.610
And so one of the most exciting things I will be working on
673
00:33:50.610 --> 00:33:55.610
in the next, probably years is having this be additional
674
00:33:56.370 --> 00:33:59.160
student opportunities for student project and research,
675
00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:02.700
to really understand what we're seeing about the sharks
676
00:34:02.700 --> 00:34:04.230
and their behavior in this video.
677
00:34:04.230 --> 00:34:08.160
And so we did get a little tiny snippet of data
678
00:34:08.160 --> 00:34:09.960
of video ROV footage.
679
00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:12.690
And I'm gonna turn this back over to Mark,
680
00:34:12.690 --> 00:34:16.590
and he is gonna show you a clip of what kind of things
681
00:34:16.590 --> 00:34:17.670
we were seeing down there.
682
00:34:17.670 --> 00:34:19.980
And I hope you'll see why it's so exciting
683
00:34:19.980 --> 00:34:22.173
to have this in my future.
684
00:34:27.540 --> 00:34:31.153 line:15%
We are on the World War II tanker, the E.M. Clark,
685
00:34:31.153 --> 00:34:34.200
a victim of World War II's Battle of the Atlantic.
686
00:34:34.200 --> 00:34:37.440
On March 18th, in 1942, it was hit by two torpedoes
687
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:39.063
and went down very quickly.
688
00:34:40.946 --> 00:34:43.025
When you have a shipwreck that sinks,
689
00:34:43.025 --> 00:34:45.827
it is able to form this structured habitat.
690
00:34:45.827 --> 00:34:49.440
And in the case of the E.M. Clark, around 500 feet long,
691
00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:53.250
this is a massive influx of a hard structure
692
00:34:53.250 --> 00:34:57.003
that rises about 60 feet up into the water column.
693
00:35:00.060 --> 00:35:01.800
So we're looking at it historically,
694
00:35:01.800 --> 00:35:03.330
archeologically, but of course,
695
00:35:03.330 --> 00:35:05.880
we're getting literally smacked in the face with marine life
696
00:35:05.880 --> 00:35:08.130
and we're looking at it ecologically
697
00:35:08.130 --> 00:35:10.350
because this transport of war has truly
698
00:35:10.350 --> 00:35:12.093
turned into an island of life.
699
00:35:15.540 --> 00:35:16.590
Those fish are staying still,
700
00:35:16.590 --> 00:35:17.963
the ROV continues to move along this wreck
701
00:35:17.963 --> 00:35:20.070
that is 500 feet long,
702
00:35:20.070 --> 00:35:23.373
and every square foot of it is covered with the lionfish.
703
00:35:25.140 --> 00:35:26.543
I've never seen anything like this.
704
00:35:29.328 --> 00:35:32.220
Most scientists now believed that lionfish
705
00:35:32.220 --> 00:35:35.970
began appearing in this area when people dumped them
706
00:35:35.970 --> 00:35:37.620
from their home aquariums.
707
00:35:37.620 --> 00:35:40.320
And they can influence the types of fish
708
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:43.323
that are on these sites as their veracious predators.
709
00:35:45.300 --> 00:35:48.630
This is just absolutely stunning seeing this mixture
710
00:35:48.630 --> 00:35:52.950
of small bait fish with the jack darting through,
711
00:35:52.950 --> 00:35:55.197
and then the slow moving sand tiger sharks
712
00:35:55.197 --> 00:35:57.303
and the lionfish at the foreground.
713
00:36:08.460 --> 00:36:11.280
So this is just such a great project to be part of.
714
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:14.910
And it's a wonderful opportunity to show people
715
00:36:14.910 --> 00:36:18.030
all of the great biodiversity that exists
716
00:36:18.030 --> 00:36:19.260
just right off of our coast,
717
00:36:19.260 --> 00:36:23.190
but that's so hard to get to and see for so many people.
718
00:36:23.190 --> 00:36:28.190
So, with that, I am going to wrap up my talk,
719
00:36:28.380 --> 00:36:32.583
but I will be taking questions in the chat box.
720
00:36:35.010 --> 00:36:37.890
While people are entering their questions,
721
00:36:37.890 --> 00:36:40.920
I wanna just give a thanks to so many people.
722
00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:43.260
I do not do this research by myself.
723
00:36:43.260 --> 00:36:46.050
I've mentioned my students who do outstanding work.
724
00:36:46.050 --> 00:36:49.803
Ara McClanahan is working on a Master's project right now.
725
00:36:50.730 --> 00:36:53.280
A lot of help from colleagues
726
00:36:53.280 --> 00:36:56.973
at the North Carolina Aquariums, the local dive community,
727
00:36:57.840 --> 00:36:59.580
professional photographers,
728
00:36:59.580 --> 00:37:04.560
as well as researchers like Dr. Avery Paxton at NOAA,
729
00:37:04.560 --> 00:37:08.700
who actually was one of the founding scientists
730
00:37:08.700 --> 00:37:11.580
on Spot A Shark and got us started.
731
00:37:11.580 --> 00:37:15.870
And Tane Casserley, who is partnering with the sanctuaries
732
00:37:15.870 --> 00:37:19.860
on those videos that I mentioned there towards the end,
733
00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:23.340
as well as many, many other researchers and groups
734
00:37:23.340 --> 00:37:24.930
that make all of this work possible.
735
00:37:24.930 --> 00:37:29.490
So, with that, I will see if there are any questions.
736
00:37:29.490 --> 00:37:31.140
I'm happy to answer.
737
00:37:31.140 --> 00:37:31.973
All right.
738
00:37:31.973 --> 00:37:32.806
Well, thank you, Carol.
739
00:37:32.806 --> 00:37:34.080
That was fascinating.
740
00:37:34.080 --> 00:37:35.940
Before you start answering questions,
741
00:37:35.940 --> 00:37:37.590
we did have a couple requests.
742
00:37:37.590 --> 00:37:40.740
If you could show the belly flop one more time
743
00:37:40.740 --> 00:37:41.910
because they missed it.
744
00:37:41.910 --> 00:37:44.163
So, Mark, would you roll that B roll?
745
00:37:45.120 --> 00:37:46.200
With pleasure.
746
00:37:46.200 --> 00:37:48.540
I love this video.
I know.
747
00:37:48.540 --> 00:37:52.053
It's so cool.
(Carol laughing)
748
00:37:56.520 --> 00:37:59.850
Okay, so the belly flop is like near the start
749
00:37:59.850 --> 00:38:01.830
of the video, so pay very close attention
750
00:38:01.830 --> 00:38:04.233
to the side stomach of the shark.
751
00:38:05.075 --> 00:38:09.060
(water bubbling)
(oxygen hissing)
752
00:38:09.060 --> 00:38:10.763
Right when she's turning.
753
00:38:12.990 --> 00:38:13.823
Right now.
754
00:38:27.120 --> 00:38:28.980
All right, perfect.
755
00:38:28.980 --> 00:38:31.863
Okay, well, I'm gonna take the screen back from you.
756
00:38:32.850 --> 00:38:35.520
I hope everybody got to see that.
757
00:38:35.520 --> 00:38:38.110
What you can see is as she's coming around
758
00:38:41.130 --> 00:38:43.350
towards the diver, she kind of veers off,
759
00:38:43.350 --> 00:38:45.840
and you just see the whole side of her body
760
00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:48.823
just sort of quiver like this.
761
00:38:48.823 --> 00:38:52.950
And you can see from her very rounded belly
762
00:38:52.950 --> 00:38:56.550
that does appear to be a pregnant sand tiger shark.
763
00:38:56.550 --> 00:38:59.167
And so, those are the kind of things like,
764
00:38:59.167 --> 00:39:01.050
how did we get so lucky, right?
765
00:39:01.050 --> 00:39:04.467
I think it was Ethan who shot that video.
766
00:39:04.467 --> 00:39:06.570
And so, it's incredibly fortunate,
767
00:39:06.570 --> 00:39:10.590
but also just valuable information that we could not
768
00:39:10.590 --> 00:39:12.150
purposely try to go out and be like,
769
00:39:12.150 --> 00:39:15.000
let's go get pictures of sand tiger sharks
770
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:16.770
with babies wobbling in their bellies.
771
00:39:16.770 --> 00:39:19.383
Like there's no way you can purposely get that.
772
00:39:19.383 --> 00:39:21.303
It's just incredibly lucky.
773
00:39:22.470 --> 00:39:23.370
All right.
774
00:39:23.370 --> 00:39:27.840
Well, just a reminder, if you haven't downloaded Carol's bio
775
00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:30.420
in the chat box, you might want to do that now,
776
00:39:30.420 --> 00:39:32.880
because in that bio you're also gonna find more information
777
00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:35.550
about Carol, but also you're gonna have some links
778
00:39:35.550 --> 00:39:36.927
that might be of interest to you.
779
00:39:36.927 --> 00:39:39.660
So, go check it out to learn more about her research
780
00:39:39.660 --> 00:39:42.750
and also more about the North Carolina Aquarium system,
781
00:39:42.750 --> 00:39:44.370
and of course us.
782
00:39:44.370 --> 00:39:45.990
So one of the very first questions
783
00:39:45.990 --> 00:39:47.880
that I'll throw out at you, Carol, that we got,
784
00:39:47.880 --> 00:39:49.260
is how can you tell the difference
785
00:39:49.260 --> 00:39:52.230
between male and female from the pictures?
786
00:39:52.230 --> 00:39:53.910
Okay, great question.
787
00:39:53.910 --> 00:39:58.910
So male sharks have reproductive appendages
788
00:39:59.460 --> 00:40:03.420
that sit right behind their last set of fins.
789
00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:06.270
All right, so these are external organs
790
00:40:06.270 --> 00:40:09.450
that they use during reproduction.
791
00:40:09.450 --> 00:40:11.490
And so the females don't have those.
792
00:40:11.490 --> 00:40:13.470
The sand tiger sharks have two,
793
00:40:13.470 --> 00:40:16.170
the males have two claspers, is what these are called,
794
00:40:16.170 --> 00:40:17.730
one on either side.
795
00:40:17.730 --> 00:40:20.280
And so, in the adult mature males,
796
00:40:20.280 --> 00:40:24.060
they are large and very visible.
797
00:40:24.060 --> 00:40:28.170
And so, for adult animals, if you can get a good look
798
00:40:28.170 --> 00:40:31.080
at the sort of back part of that shark,
799
00:40:31.080 --> 00:40:33.210
it's fairly easy to tell.
800
00:40:33.210 --> 00:40:37.620
Sometimes, however, the pictures are maybe a little angled.
801
00:40:37.620 --> 00:40:39.630
And so, while we can see the spots,
802
00:40:39.630 --> 00:40:43.290
we might not really be able to see that part of the shark.
803
00:40:43.290 --> 00:40:45.390
Sometimes if it's taken from above
804
00:40:45.390 --> 00:40:47.340
or if it's a very young shark,
805
00:40:47.340 --> 00:40:49.620
those claspers might not have developed yet.
806
00:40:49.620 --> 00:40:54.270
And so, we don't want to misidentify those as females.
807
00:40:54.270 --> 00:40:58.650
So we're very careful and we always look at everything
808
00:40:58.650 --> 00:41:01.770
two or three times and get second opinions
809
00:41:01.770 --> 00:41:03.360
on a whole lot of stuff to make sure
810
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:06.210
that we're getting things as right as possible.
811
00:41:06.210 --> 00:41:07.510
But it's a great question.
812
00:41:08.370 --> 00:41:09.840
All right, Mark, do you have a question
813
00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:11.730
that you want to ask?
814
00:41:11.730 --> 00:41:13.380
Yes, but before I do,
815
00:41:13.380 --> 00:41:16.860
I just want to remind everybody that any picture you take
816
00:41:16.860 --> 00:41:21.090
in North Carolina waters qualifies as an entry
817
00:41:21.090 --> 00:41:22.830
for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
818
00:41:22.830 --> 00:41:24.960
in our Get Into Your Sanctuary Photo Contest.
819
00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:28.230
So please do participate in that contest,
820
00:41:28.230 --> 00:41:31.050
but this is actually a really, really good question.
821
00:41:31.050 --> 00:41:34.050
But do you have any idea what these sharks
822
00:41:34.050 --> 00:41:36.903
used before shipwrecks?
823
00:41:38.340 --> 00:41:41.400
You know, that is such a mystery.
824
00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:44.490
Shipwrecks are a new habitat, for sure.
825
00:41:44.490 --> 00:41:49.490
So, I mean, people have been on the oceans
826
00:41:49.500 --> 00:41:53.880
for thousands of years, but until pretty recently,
827
00:41:53.880 --> 00:41:55.200
ships were made out of wood.
828
00:41:55.200 --> 00:41:57.570
And so they might have lasted for some time,
829
00:41:57.570 --> 00:42:00.360
but these large metal vessels,
830
00:42:00.360 --> 00:42:02.560
like the ones that we are seeing
831
00:42:03.600 --> 00:42:06.180
are maybe not permanent structures,
832
00:42:06.180 --> 00:42:08.370
but they are long-lived structures.
833
00:42:08.370 --> 00:42:13.370
And as that video mentioned, the longer they are down,
834
00:42:13.950 --> 00:42:18.120
the more and more they are serving as habitat.
835
00:42:18.120 --> 00:42:20.670
But we presume, although we don't know,
836
00:42:20.670 --> 00:42:24.150
because nobody was photographing sand tiger sharks
837
00:42:24.150 --> 00:42:29.150
100 years ago, or even 50 years ago.
838
00:42:30.420 --> 00:42:34.020
Just the ability to get out that far and to get deep enough,
839
00:42:34.020 --> 00:42:37.530
and then the photographic equipment has really just evolved
840
00:42:37.530 --> 00:42:39.600
in the last few decades for us to be able
841
00:42:39.600 --> 00:42:41.100
to even look at that.
842
00:42:41.100 --> 00:42:45.180
But we do know that where these sharks are in other places
843
00:42:45.180 --> 00:42:48.270
in the world like Australia, for example,
844
00:42:48.270 --> 00:42:52.530
they're highly associated with offshore reef habitats,
845
00:42:52.530 --> 00:42:54.210
or hard bottom habitats.
846
00:42:54.210 --> 00:42:56.550
So, not necessarily like coral reefs,
847
00:42:56.550 --> 00:42:58.890
like you think about like in the tropics,
848
00:42:58.890 --> 00:43:03.890
but more like rocky outcrops, those sorts of structures,
849
00:43:04.890 --> 00:43:07.950
where there is elevation and what we call relief.
850
00:43:07.950 --> 00:43:10.710
Those are the kinds of places that we tend to see
851
00:43:10.710 --> 00:43:13.683
sand tiger sharks in other parts of the world.
852
00:43:14.910 --> 00:43:18.630
So it is really interesting to understand
853
00:43:18.630 --> 00:43:22.110
how human structures in the ocean are serving as habitat
854
00:43:22.110 --> 00:43:25.530
for this species, as well as all of the other animals
855
00:43:25.530 --> 00:43:28.050
that are colonizing these habitats.
856
00:43:28.050 --> 00:43:30.720
That's a whole new focus of research.
857
00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:33.960
There's another location on the southern part
858
00:43:33.960 --> 00:43:36.240
of North Carolina called Frying Pan Tower
859
00:43:36.240 --> 00:43:39.300
that is an old observation tower.
860
00:43:39.300 --> 00:43:44.130
So, it has like sort of legs that go down into the water.
861
00:43:44.130 --> 00:43:46.740
And there's a live camera on there,
862
00:43:46.740 --> 00:43:48.370
right now it's not operational
863
00:43:50.070 --> 00:43:52.590
for the public to be able to see,
864
00:43:52.590 --> 00:43:55.230
but we have a camera there and not, we,
865
00:43:55.230 --> 00:43:58.380
one of my partners, Dr. Burge has a camera there.
866
00:43:58.380 --> 00:44:00.180
And so we're actually able to get footage there.
867
00:44:00.180 --> 00:44:02.490
So it's very different in that it's not a shipwreck,
868
00:44:02.490 --> 00:44:05.850
but it is a big metal structure that also is providing
869
00:44:05.850 --> 00:44:09.600
some sort of a benefit that these sharks really like,
870
00:44:09.600 --> 00:44:12.510
because we have many, many sharks that seem to be
871
00:44:12.510 --> 00:44:15.000
overwintering at that location.
872
00:44:15.000 --> 00:44:17.430
So there's just so much to learn.
873
00:44:17.430 --> 00:44:19.470
I'm really curious how wind structures,
874
00:44:19.470 --> 00:44:21.900
wind energy structures in the ocean, for example,
875
00:44:21.900 --> 00:44:24.330
might serve as habitat for these sharks.
876
00:44:24.330 --> 00:44:25.770
And it might teach us a little bit
877
00:44:25.770 --> 00:44:28.953
about how they recruit to new locations.
878
00:44:29.940 --> 00:44:31.410
Okay, thank you.
879
00:44:31.410 --> 00:44:33.067
Another question that came in is,
880
00:44:33.067 --> 00:44:36.120
"Are there hypotheses about how pregnant female
881
00:44:36.120 --> 00:44:39.717
sand tiger sharks benefit from occupying shipwrecks?"
882
00:44:42.330 --> 00:44:46.260
Well, (laughs) that is a really good question.
883
00:44:46.260 --> 00:44:49.950
I think sort of our first step here is to really be able
884
00:44:49.950 --> 00:44:53.970
to document that, in fact, we are seeing pregnant females
885
00:44:53.970 --> 00:44:55.110
at these shipwrecks.
886
00:44:55.110 --> 00:44:59.070
The video that we saw is just one example,
887
00:44:59.070 --> 00:45:02.100
but really being able to document over many years,
888
00:45:02.100 --> 00:45:06.930
that what we are seeing are these very large round females
889
00:45:06.930 --> 00:45:08.340
presumed to be pregnant.
890
00:45:08.340 --> 00:45:10.503
That's kind of like really the first step.
891
00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:14.850
These sharks aggregate,
892
00:45:14.850 --> 00:45:18.000
the pregnant female sand tiger sharks do aggregate
893
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:19.950
or school or get into their shivers,
894
00:45:19.950 --> 00:45:23.160
their female shivers in other parts of the world.
895
00:45:23.160 --> 00:45:26.400
So we know that that is a natural behavior
896
00:45:26.400 --> 00:45:30.807
and it could just be, this is a very social shark.
897
00:45:30.807 --> 00:45:34.740
And so, it could be that this is sort of how they behave
898
00:45:34.740 --> 00:45:35.970
most of the time.
899
00:45:35.970 --> 00:45:39.240
It might not be just when they're pregnant, for example.
900
00:45:39.240 --> 00:45:41.010
There might be safety in numbers.
901
00:45:41.010 --> 00:45:43.100
So, they might just...
902
00:45:43.950 --> 00:45:47.640
If you're a very large, these are not fast moving sharks,
903
00:45:47.640 --> 00:45:50.190
so it could be if you're a species that's kind of slow
904
00:45:50.190 --> 00:45:52.890
and you're very pregnant,
905
00:45:52.890 --> 00:45:57.030
maybe it's nice just to hang out near some structure
906
00:45:57.030 --> 00:46:01.680
with your other female pregnant friends.
907
00:46:01.680 --> 00:46:04.950
Again, we are so much at the beginning
908
00:46:04.950 --> 00:46:07.530
of learning about this species that some of these
909
00:46:07.530 --> 00:46:09.390
basic questions haven't even been answered.
910
00:46:09.390 --> 00:46:11.883
So that's what really makes this very exciting.
911
00:46:12.870 --> 00:46:15.093
There's just so much more exploration to do.
912
00:46:16.950 --> 00:46:19.620
Okay, Mark, do you have a question?
913
00:46:19.620 --> 00:46:21.870
Yes, I'm seeing a lot of ire
914
00:46:21.870 --> 00:46:23.910
for the lionfish in the chat,
915
00:46:23.910 --> 00:46:26.047
but this is actually a really interesting question.
916
00:46:26.047 --> 00:46:31.047
"Do you have any insight on if there's a type of shipwreck
917
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:35.370
that these sharks can prefer and would that change
918
00:46:35.370 --> 00:46:37.710
depending on like their food, shelter, or the time of year,
919
00:46:37.710 --> 00:46:39.420
or something like that?"
920
00:46:39.420 --> 00:46:41.910
Another fantastic question.
921
00:46:41.910 --> 00:46:44.250
So that's kind of some of the stuff I'd like to get out
922
00:46:44.250 --> 00:46:49.170
with this analysis that I'll be doing this fall and winter
923
00:46:49.170 --> 00:46:54.170
in the write up that I'm exploring is where are these
924
00:46:54.360 --> 00:46:57.720
shipwrecks that the sharks tend to be found at?
925
00:46:57.720 --> 00:47:00.480
Now, this is a bit confounded because really
926
00:47:00.480 --> 00:47:03.270
what we're seeing is shipwrecks where divers like to go,
927
00:47:03.270 --> 00:47:04.500
where there are also sharks.
928
00:47:04.500 --> 00:47:07.410
So we have to be careful about untangling some of that,
929
00:47:07.410 --> 00:47:11.880
but we really are interested in seeing if there are certain
930
00:47:11.880 --> 00:47:14.492
depths that they seem to prefer, inshore,
931
00:47:14.492 --> 00:47:17.310
out offshore a little bit further,
932
00:47:17.310 --> 00:47:19.830
and then the age of the shipwreck.
933
00:47:19.830 --> 00:47:23.820
So, as a shipwreck goes from having just...
934
00:47:23.820 --> 00:47:26.070
A ship goes from having just been sunk
935
00:47:26.070 --> 00:47:29.520
to being in underwater and being on the sea floor
936
00:47:29.520 --> 00:47:34.080
for 20, 30, 40, or more years.
937
00:47:34.080 --> 00:47:38.850
There's been some excellent work done by Dr. Avery Paxton,
938
00:47:38.850 --> 00:47:43.050
for example, to study how the community shifts
939
00:47:43.050 --> 00:47:45.300
over that time period.
940
00:47:45.300 --> 00:47:48.720
And we know that there is a sweet spot
941
00:47:48.720 --> 00:47:52.200
when the sharks start to show up and recruit to these wrecks
942
00:47:52.200 --> 00:47:56.070
and how that community of fishes and other organisms
943
00:47:56.070 --> 00:47:57.960
changes over time.
944
00:47:57.960 --> 00:48:01.110
Also very, very new field of study.
945
00:48:01.110 --> 00:48:03.270
And the sand tiger sharks are definitely
946
00:48:03.270 --> 00:48:05.430
an interesting part of that story.
947
00:48:05.430 --> 00:48:09.550
And we're also hoping that that ROV footage will help
948
00:48:10.920 --> 00:48:12.750
take apart of that as well.
949
00:48:12.750 --> 00:48:14.820
But excellent question.
950
00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:17.283
All really great research questions.
951
00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:20.430
All right, and another question that came in
952
00:48:20.430 --> 00:48:21.630
that's kind of interesting.
953
00:48:21.630 --> 00:48:24.900
It says, "In theory, are there thoughts that the lionfish
954
00:48:24.900 --> 00:48:28.437
are negatively impacting food availability for the sharks?"
955
00:48:30.900 --> 00:48:33.600
So, lionfish are, gosh,
956
00:48:33.600 --> 00:48:36.930
they're their own fascinating subject.
957
00:48:36.930 --> 00:48:41.397
So we do know that lionfish are eating so many fish.
958
00:48:42.660 --> 00:48:45.150
I mean, they're voracious feeders.
959
00:48:45.150 --> 00:48:47.190
They have an enormous gape size,
960
00:48:47.190 --> 00:48:49.470
so they can eat something that's almost the size
961
00:48:49.470 --> 00:48:53.220
of themselves in one sort of gulp.
962
00:48:53.220 --> 00:48:55.623
So they sort of inhale their food.
963
00:48:57.660 --> 00:49:01.980
But mostly, a lionfish, even a big lionfish is gonna be
964
00:49:01.980 --> 00:49:04.920
limited by the size of fish that it can eat.
965
00:49:04.920 --> 00:49:06.900
We know that they feed on commercially
966
00:49:06.900 --> 00:49:08.700
and recreationally important species,
967
00:49:08.700 --> 00:49:12.540
as well as the full range of other small fish
968
00:49:12.540 --> 00:49:14.403
that we see out there.
969
00:49:16.680 --> 00:49:18.720
The sand tiger sharks on the other hand
970
00:49:18.720 --> 00:49:21.840
are really feeding in a different size bracket.
971
00:49:21.840 --> 00:49:25.980
So they're gonna be eating fish that are much larger.
972
00:49:25.980 --> 00:49:28.830
We are still trying to figure out exactly
973
00:49:28.830 --> 00:49:32.460
what sand tiger sharks eat.
974
00:49:32.460 --> 00:49:37.460
Very few reports of them eating specific items,
975
00:49:37.740 --> 00:49:39.123
like watching them eat.
976
00:49:40.770 --> 00:49:45.330
Here, we do know they eat fish and skates and rays
977
00:49:45.330 --> 00:49:48.420
and even other sharks,
978
00:49:48.420 --> 00:49:53.070
but really understanding their diet is still something
979
00:49:53.070 --> 00:49:55.560
that needs to be investigated.
980
00:49:55.560 --> 00:50:00.360
So there is definitely a link there,
981
00:50:00.360 --> 00:50:02.850
but they're really eating at different places
982
00:50:02.850 --> 00:50:04.020
in the food web.
983
00:50:04.020 --> 00:50:07.500
So I don't know that there's perhaps a direct impact
984
00:50:07.500 --> 00:50:11.520
of those lionfish, but over time at a large scale,
985
00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:14.583
with out of control lionfish populations,
986
00:50:15.780 --> 00:50:20.460
it is certainly a hypothesis worth investigating
987
00:50:20.460 --> 00:50:23.820
because we know when you have a species like lionfish
988
00:50:23.820 --> 00:50:28.660
that are so out of balance in the ecosystem that that can
989
00:50:29.730 --> 00:50:34.110
have up and down effects along the food webs.
990
00:50:34.110 --> 00:50:36.123
It's a excellent ecology question.
991
00:50:37.740 --> 00:50:39.120
All right, Mark, one more question?
992
00:50:39.120 --> 00:50:41.183
I think we may have time for one or two more.
993
00:50:42.210 --> 00:50:43.140
Great.
994
00:50:43.140 --> 00:50:46.020
I'm going to, again, use this question as an excuse
995
00:50:46.020 --> 00:50:48.810
to plug the Get Into Your Sanctuary Photo Contest,
996
00:50:48.810 --> 00:50:52.140
but do you partner with any other dive shops in the area
997
00:50:52.140 --> 00:50:54.753
for photographing these sharks?
998
00:50:56.010 --> 00:51:01.010
Yeah, so we don't necessarily directly partner
999
00:51:02.820 --> 00:51:04.020
with the dive shops.
1000
00:51:04.020 --> 00:51:06.360
They are very helpful because what we do
1001
00:51:06.360 --> 00:51:08.610
is we go to the dive shops and we share information
1002
00:51:08.610 --> 00:51:09.600
about Spot A Shark.
1003
00:51:09.600 --> 00:51:13.440
We have little cards and handouts and slates
1004
00:51:13.440 --> 00:51:15.660
that we can provide the dive shops.
1005
00:51:15.660 --> 00:51:17.790
And then we tell them about Spot A Shark,
1006
00:51:17.790 --> 00:51:19.980
and they tell their divers about it.
1007
00:51:19.980 --> 00:51:24.980
So partially because of the COVID sort of plopped itself
1008
00:51:25.680 --> 00:51:28.710
right in the middle of getting Spot A Shark off the ground,
1009
00:51:28.710 --> 00:51:30.690
which I think was kind of rude.
1010
00:51:30.690 --> 00:51:32.700
We're sort of getting back into the swing of things
1011
00:51:32.700 --> 00:51:34.920
in terms of engaging directly with dive shops.
1012
00:51:34.920 --> 00:51:39.900
So, we have reached out to over 30 dive shops and dive clubs
1013
00:51:39.900 --> 00:51:42.630
in North Carolina all up and down the coast,
1014
00:51:42.630 --> 00:51:45.660
and even a little bit inland.
1015
00:51:45.660 --> 00:51:47.940
We have a plan, had a plan,
1016
00:51:47.940 --> 00:51:50.281
now we're kind of moving back into implementing that
1017
00:51:50.281 --> 00:51:53.077
to reach out again, to remind everybody,
1018
00:51:53.077 --> 00:51:54.390
"Hey, tell your divers.
1019
00:51:54.390 --> 00:51:57.540
Hey, here's our information cards."
1020
00:51:57.540 --> 00:52:01.140
So it's definitely on our outreach plan
1021
00:52:01.140 --> 00:52:03.690
is to continue engaging with the dive shops.
1022
00:52:03.690 --> 00:52:08.490
And we will partner with any of the dive shops or clubs
1023
00:52:08.490 --> 00:52:11.223
that are interested in learning more.
1024
00:52:12.180 --> 00:52:17.130
I was actually go and give talks to dive clubs when invited.
1025
00:52:17.130 --> 00:52:19.920
Either I or some of our Diving Safety Officers,
1026
00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:22.590
my students, or other volunteers.
1027
00:52:22.590 --> 00:52:27.590
So we have a lot of ways to get involved for dive shops
1028
00:52:27.990 --> 00:52:29.640
that want more information.
1029
00:52:29.640 --> 00:52:32.700
And I think you're gonna pop up my email account there
1030
00:52:32.700 --> 00:52:34.290
here in a couple of minutes.
1031
00:52:34.290 --> 00:52:37.200
So please do, if you're affiliated with a dive shop
1032
00:52:37.200 --> 00:52:39.120
or a dive club and would like to learn more,
1033
00:52:39.120 --> 00:52:40.800
please get in touch.
1034
00:52:40.800 --> 00:52:41.633
Okay, thank you.
1035
00:52:41.633 --> 00:52:45.450
And Mark, I put the link to the Sanctuary Photo Contest
1036
00:52:45.450 --> 00:52:46.410
in the chat.
1037
00:52:46.410 --> 00:52:48.750
So everybody click on that so you can learn more
1038
00:52:48.750 --> 00:52:50.700
and send your photos in.
1039
00:52:50.700 --> 00:52:53.730
Okay, so I think this will be the last question.
1040
00:52:53.730 --> 00:52:56.130
Somebody asked, "Do you tag the sharks
1041
00:52:56.130 --> 00:52:57.957
to try to look at their movements?"
1042
00:52:58.950 --> 00:53:02.763
So for Spot A Shark USA, we do not tag the sharks.
1043
00:53:04.680 --> 00:53:07.260
The tag is sort of the video photograph.
1044
00:53:07.260 --> 00:53:09.270
So it's completely noninvasive.
1045
00:53:09.270 --> 00:53:14.270
However, we do have a separate project where we do put tags
1046
00:53:15.570 --> 00:53:18.720
inside of sharks, acoustic telemetry tags.
1047
00:53:18.720 --> 00:53:21.240
So that's a tag that lasts about 10 years,
1048
00:53:21.240 --> 00:53:25.470
that sends out a sound signal into the environment.
1049
00:53:25.470 --> 00:53:30.420
And if the shark that is tagged with one of these passes by
1050
00:53:30.420 --> 00:53:34.110
an acoustic receiver, that's a machine that can pick up
1051
00:53:34.110 --> 00:53:38.160
that sound that is coming out of that tag, it gets logged.
1052
00:53:38.160 --> 00:53:39.720
And so we can, and these are deployed,
1053
00:53:39.720 --> 00:53:43.950
these receivers are deployed all over North Carolina,
1054
00:53:43.950 --> 00:53:45.750
all over the Atlantic seaboard,
1055
00:53:45.750 --> 00:53:49.050
many, many researchers have those deployed,
1056
00:53:49.050 --> 00:53:50.820
and we share that data.
1057
00:53:50.820 --> 00:53:52.890
So, we have our own receivers.
1058
00:53:52.890 --> 00:53:57.450
So we know if we get a ping or a hit from one of our tags
1059
00:53:57.450 --> 00:54:01.080
and also any other tagged fish that swims by.
1060
00:54:01.080 --> 00:54:03.420
It's kind of a really cool system.
1061
00:54:03.420 --> 00:54:06.660
So, we do have some tagged sharks out.
1062
00:54:06.660 --> 00:54:11.220
We've got about 30, a little over 30 sharks
1063
00:54:11.220 --> 00:54:12.960
that we have tagged.
1064
00:54:12.960 --> 00:54:15.420
There are also people that we work closely with
1065
00:54:15.420 --> 00:54:16.293
that tag them.
1066
00:54:18.660 --> 00:54:21.840
We're also planning on deploying some other kinds
1067
00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:25.800
of like satellite tags that also transmit information
1068
00:54:25.800 --> 00:54:28.050
about the movement patterns of these sharks
1069
00:54:28.050 --> 00:54:29.670
via satellite technology.
1070
00:54:29.670 --> 00:54:31.920
So that gives us different information.
1071
00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:35.100
These are all really great questions.
1072
00:54:35.100 --> 00:54:37.890
There's other kind of tags that you can put on the outside
1073
00:54:37.890 --> 00:54:39.870
of a shark that has like a number on it.
1074
00:54:39.870 --> 00:54:41.220
So if the shark is caught,
1075
00:54:41.220 --> 00:54:42.630
you can report that number
1076
00:54:42.630 --> 00:54:46.620
to the National Marine Fishery Service or to a researcher.
1077
00:54:46.620 --> 00:54:48.600
So there's a lot of ways to put external tags
1078
00:54:48.600 --> 00:54:50.670
or internal tags on sharks.
1079
00:54:50.670 --> 00:54:53.580
And the cool thing is that all of these different kinds
1080
00:54:53.580 --> 00:54:56.370
of ways of studying sharks give you different information
1081
00:54:56.370 --> 00:54:57.900
at different scales.
1082
00:54:57.900 --> 00:55:00.690
And so, what's exciting is getting people that kind of
1083
00:55:00.690 --> 00:55:02.670
do different things and collect different kinds of data
1084
00:55:02.670 --> 00:55:07.020
together to figure out what the overall holistic picture is.
1085
00:55:07.020 --> 00:55:11.280
And I think that's hopefully work that we can support
1086
00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:14.550
in the future is kind of like bringing all of that together
1087
00:55:14.550 --> 00:55:17.610
in sort of a collaborative science network
1088
00:55:17.610 --> 00:55:19.200
to really understand what's going on,
1089
00:55:19.200 --> 00:55:22.833
not just off North Carolina, but off of the entire US coast.
1090
00:55:23.790 --> 00:55:26.100
Okay, thank you, Carol.
1091
00:55:26.100 --> 00:55:28.470
All right, so if we did not get to your question
1092
00:55:28.470 --> 00:55:30.000
or if you have additional ones,
1093
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:32.313
you can always send them to the presenter.
1094
00:55:33.330 --> 00:55:35.580
And Carol's email address is listed right here
1095
00:55:35.580 --> 00:55:36.810
on the screen.
1096
00:55:36.810 --> 00:55:39.510
You can also visit the North Carolina Aquariums website
1097
00:55:39.510 --> 00:55:42.450
to explore and learn more about these fascinating creatures.
1098
00:55:42.450 --> 00:55:43.530
And if you're in the area,
1099
00:55:43.530 --> 00:55:45.756
be sure to stop by one of the three aquariums
1100
00:55:45.756 --> 00:55:48.213
and/or Jennette's Pier in the North Carolina.
1101
00:55:49.470 --> 00:55:52.500
And a video recording of the presentation will be available
1102
00:55:52.500 --> 00:55:55.110
on the Sanctuaries Webinar archives page
1103
00:55:55.110 --> 00:55:58.260
found here at the URL listed here at the top of the page.
1104
00:55:58.260 --> 00:56:00.120
But don't worry, that's a long URL,
1105
00:56:00.120 --> 00:56:02.020
and I don't expect you to remember it.
1106
00:56:03.270 --> 00:56:05.220
In addition, the webinar will be archived
1107
00:56:05.220 --> 00:56:07.380
on Monitor National Marine Sanctuary's website.
1108
00:56:07.380 --> 00:56:10.200
You can click on the Multimedia section in the toolbar
1109
00:56:10.200 --> 00:56:11.610
to access the webinar box.
1110
00:56:11.610 --> 00:56:14.370
You'll also find future webinars in that same section.
1111
00:56:14.370 --> 00:56:15.360
And again, don't worry,
1112
00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:17.100
all of this information is gonna be sent to you
1113
00:56:17.100 --> 00:56:20.220
in a follow up email once the recording is ready to view.
1114
00:56:20.220 --> 00:56:21.150
And just so that you know,
1115
00:56:21.150 --> 00:56:22.710
the recording usually takes about a week
1116
00:56:22.710 --> 00:56:23.730
'cause we have to caption it
1117
00:56:23.730 --> 00:56:25.620
and then we have to have our web team put it up.
1118
00:56:25.620 --> 00:56:27.633
So, just be patient, but it will be up.
1119
00:56:28.470 --> 00:56:32.250
And on July 21st, I invite you to come and watch
1120
00:56:32.250 --> 00:56:34.650
Office of National Marine Sanctuary series
1121
00:56:34.650 --> 00:56:36.720
when they are hosting Dr. Steve Gittings
1122
00:56:36.720 --> 00:56:38.190
to explore the world of lionfish.
1123
00:56:38.190 --> 00:56:40.710
We saw a lot of lionfish today on the shipwrecks.
1124
00:56:40.710 --> 00:56:43.860
So this might be one that everybody wants to follow up with.
1125
00:56:43.860 --> 00:56:45.180
Learn how things have changed
1126
00:56:45.180 --> 00:56:47.160
since they were first discovered in the Atlantic Ocean
1127
00:56:47.160 --> 00:56:50.520
nearly 40 years ago and how the lionfish is impacting
1128
00:56:50.520 --> 00:56:53.100
the future and health of our ocean.
1129
00:56:53.100 --> 00:56:55.110
And of course, we invite you to always follow us
1130
00:56:55.110 --> 00:56:56.253
on social media.
1131
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:00.030
And lastly, as you exit the webinar,
1132
00:57:00.030 --> 00:57:03.450
there is a short survey for formal and informal educators.
1133
00:57:03.450 --> 00:57:06.450
If you are an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it
1134
00:57:06.450 --> 00:57:08.490
if you'd take a minute or two to complete the survey.
1135
00:57:08.490 --> 00:57:10.860
Your answers will help NOAA develop future webinars
1136
00:57:10.860 --> 00:57:11.850
to meet your needs.
1137
00:57:11.850 --> 00:57:13.860
And your participation is voluntary
1138
00:57:13.860 --> 00:57:17.010
and your answers will be completely anonymous.
1139
00:57:17.010 --> 00:57:20.190
So, once again, thank you, Carol, for a great presentation,
1140
00:57:20.190 --> 00:57:23.010
and thank you for joining us today.
1141
00:57:23.010 --> 00:57:25.020
And I hope that everyone has a wonderful day
1142
00:57:25.020 --> 00:57:26.970
and this concludes the presentation.
1143
00:57:26.970 --> 00:57:27.803
Thank you.
1144
00:57:29.220 --> 00:57:31.570
Thanks, everyone.
Bye, everyone.