CJ (UR) - A shark can only attack you if you're wet

Since I’m basing my research project off catching sharks and eventually tagging them, these websites could be useful to my research project because they are all websites of organizations that deal with sharks and shark research here in Florida. I plan on catching them and taking data including species, length, girth, sex, and the location where I caught it to further help understand what kind of shark species call these local waters home which in turn could help formulate a conservation and awareness plan here in our county that prides itself in being the “Shark Bite Capital of the World”.

The first source I found was the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center whose mission “is to conduct life history studies of commercially and recreationally important shark species. Our research is focused on distribution and migration patterns, age and growth, reproductive biology, and feeding ecology. We conduct fishery independent surveys of large and small coastal sharks in US waters from Florida to Delaware.”. This source will be useful because it has tagging information which has tips and instructions, research information and species descriptions. 

Like the source above the FWC has all the information you would need about sharks but it is specifically Florida and the species and laws associated with sharks and fishing for them. It gives you information on proper gear, sharks that are prohibited from landing in state waters on top off regulations and species identification. 

The last source I found that could be useful is the Ocearch Shark Tracker. These guys have an app that you can get on your phone that shows you the locations of different shark species tagged by them around the world. It’s one of the best visual representations you can get as far as shark tagging. In addition to that, you can see the species, sex, length, weight, age, the path in which the shark has traveled and where the shark was tagged. 

Sources

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association/Northeast Fisheries Science Center. (2019). Apex Predators Program. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/nefsc/Narragansett/sharks/

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. (2019). Sharks. [Website]. Retrieved from https://myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/sharks/

Ocearch. (2019). Shark Tracker. [Website]. Retrieved from https://www.ocearch.org/?list