Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Two times lucky!


That would be the Academic College kids!

Check out their Facebook page!
They are currently experiencing lovely weather with stellar viz and heaps upon heaps of Bulls.
Plus, Scarface has paid them a visit not once, but twice! Talk about being lucky! It's actually a karma thing that only happens to good people: as we always say, the big girl sure knows when to make an appearance!

This is the second installment of ATC's Marine Science Program focusing on Shark Behavior and Conservation and from what I can see, it once again looks like a great success and loads of fun on top of that!
Kudos to lecturer Jon McKenzie for being a worthy successor to trail blazer Imogen, and to Lauren for ensuring that all keeps ticking over nicely and above all, safely!

And fingers crossed that Jon's newly discovered Lemon Shark nurseries will be spared! Anybody out there who wants to finance some urgently needed baseline research?

And as always, a big Thank You to the Manifestation of God!

5 comments:

BeachNomad said...

Thanks for the kind comments Mike. I know that all the kids here on the ATC trip are having an amazing time and the quality of the crew at BAD are unmatched anywhere.

Sadly my research at the Chandeleur Islands has been temporarily stalled because BP has decided to buy out all of the captains able to take us to our study site. In effect keeping anyone from doing anything but daily trips out to the Breton Sound National Wildlife Refuge. This keeps any research from being conducted at a time when we need to figure out exactly what effects the oil will have on the entire marine ecosystem at the islands.

Prior to this event other researchers and I at the Nekton Research Lab had applied for various sources of money to get baseline information on the lemon shark population at the Chandeleur Islands. We were denied this funding because our type of research had been done in other parts of the world and was no longer considered "sexy". Had we been able to install our vemco arrays and tag more sharks we would be able to actually determine the effects of the spill on a large apex predator (lemon sharks) instead of just guessing from fish abundances. Hopefully this event will show more people the importance of baseline data and we can get back to conducting proper science.

~Jon

DaShark said...

Welcome Jon - certainly more than deserved, it's a pleasure hosting you!

Let's hope that as a result of your teaching, one of the kids will decide to progress into Shark research and above all, Shark conservation!

Any solutions for getting you back out with the Lemons?
Would that be a money thing, as in securing grants?

Beachnomad said...

Currently we are attempting to get a hold of a state wildlife boat or anything else to get back out, but BP is making this incredibly difficult.

For once its not actually a money problem. We have the funds to make a couple trips to the islands to work on the sharks as well as investigate the impacts of oil on the fish assemblages out there. The funds we have are enough to cover our basic efforts but we are still looking for funding to conduct lemon shark home range studies in the future.

The Sharkman said...

"Scarface has paid them a visit not once, but twice! Talk about being lucky! It's actually a karma thing that only happens to good people: as we always say, the big girl sure knows when to make an appearance!"

Guess I do not qualify with the good people!
:-(

DaShark said...

You do you do!

She just keeps up the suspense as she wants you to come back - as do we!