Sevengill sharks of California, Photo ID and Community Science

Michael Bear is the President and co-founder of Ocean Sanctuaries and a board member of Shark Stewards. He manages the Sevengill Shark ID Project, which uses the pattern recognition algorithms contained in ‘Wildbook’ to help identify Sevengills returning to La Jolla [and Cape Town] from year-to-year. We are leading dive trips and recruiting divers who dive the san Diego area to submit photographs of sevengill sharks to photo ID using an algorithm.

Read More

Sharks and Chainmail Valerie Taylor: Women in Ocean Science

I watched Jaws for the first time as a kid, with my dad. He cautioned me it might be too scary, but I wasn’t scared of the shark- I was enthralled. That fascination never left and has brought me to many pieces of media much better for sharks than Jaws, but Jaws in addition to all the horror the film brought for sharks, helped bring prominence to the career of a remarkable woman who has worked tirelessly to document and save sharks.

Read More

Sharks and the sustainable blue economy

Sharks play a pivotal role in ocean ecosystems, acting as apex predators that maintain the health and balance of marine environments. Their presence regulates species populations, which helps prevent the overgrazing of seagrasses and reefs by smaller marine animals.6 By promoting healthy oceanic ecosystems, sharks indirectly support fisheries and other marine industries critical to the blue economy.

Read More

The Islands of the Dead: Exploring the Farallon Islands

Located close to San Francisco, one of the world’s most recognizable metropolises, there is a series of desolate, fog shrouded, wind and wave-sculpted islands. Known as the “Islands of the Dead” by the Native Miwok, and the “Devil’s Teeth” by Spanish mariners, these islands have a fascinating history of human exploitation, killing and loss.

Read More

How Jaws Influenced Shark Perception

Twenty-one years after publication, Peter Benchley, the author of the best selling novel from which the script was derived said, “I couldn’t write Jaws today. The extensive new knowledge of sharks would make it impossible for me to create, in good conscience, a villain of the magnitude and malignity of the original.”

Read More