August Shark Sampling
This guest post was written by Phil Matich, a graduate researcher in Dr. Mike Heithaus' lab at Florida International University. _________________________________________________________________________ We just got back from an amazing trip in August! As always, we left early in the morning and were fortunate enough to catch the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower as we drove to the boat ramp. On our way to the field site we saw the sun rise over the water and the mangroves, and then got right to work catching sharks. On the first live, we caught two sharks, 79 and 85 cm total length, and surgically implanted the smaller individual with an acoustic transmitter so that we could track its movements. Surprisingly, the larger shark was an individual we had caught and tagged in July, and is one of the first sharks we’ve recaptured in the last three years!