Victoria UR- "We're going to need a bigger boat"

For my Independent Research Project, I will be tagging sharks. The goal is to find which shark species call the local waters home and use them for nurseries. 

Shark Tagging Kit

Tagging Information: The process of tagging a shark is simple in theory and in overall directions, but the actual physical process is somewhat difficult. Depending on the size of the shark being tagged determines the size of the tag used. When tagging juveniles, it is a small tag, that gets inserted with a needle looking tool that just pushes the barbed end of the tag into the soft tissue of the sharks upper lateral body, where there are almost no nerves to worry about hurting them. For adults the task is more difficult. The tools can range from another needle like tool to using a drill. The black tip that I posted in last weeks blog got a full tag that required a drill to clamp a GPS tag onto the dorsal fin, that will eventually rust and fall off, leaving the tag with all the tracking information. The dorsal fin has no nerves in it just like the upper lateral section of the body, so there is no pain to the shark that is being tagged.

NOAA shark tagging instructions


There are many animals of all different species that call the Indian River Lagoon home. There are the common species of fish that we see all the time when fishing or at local restaurants that have fisheries. Every now and again though, we hear stories of sharks in our waters. After all, New Smyrna Beach is the recorded shark bite capital of the world. Because of this, we know that there are many different species of sharks that call the Indian River Lagoon home, and use it as a breeding ground to nurse the pups to become mature enough to survive on their own. One of the most terrifying species, the Bull shark, calls our waterways home and are very important to our ecosystem.
IRL Bull Sharks

This is a photo from my Shark Ecology class. This is a sand bar being tagged, which required punching a hole in the dorsal fin, like using a hole punch for school papers. The tag was then inserted, and the data was recorded with the tag number.

Shark Tracker  This is the webpage that the OCEARCH team has been working on. One of the scientists who worked on this project was the Professor who taught the Shark Ecology class and is the one in the above picture tagging the shark.

One of many different kinds of tags that can be used on a shark. This one is used to track the migrations patterns and living habits of the shark, and will fall off at a particular point in time.