Shark Selfies To Help Take Stock Of Numbers
Taking a cue from terrestrial animal surveys, marine researchers and conservationists are gearing up to 'camera trap' sharks to take an accurate of count of their global numbers.
Sharks, along with rays and skates, are among the most hunted species in oceans. Shark hunting costs nearly 100 million individuals every year. At such rates, oceans' top predators are deemed to go extinct which would be disastrous for marine ecosystems. Conservation efforts have not had impact expected due to data inadequacy. To fill data gaps, particularly in the waters of Indo-Pacific, tropical western Atlantic, and southern and eastern Africa and Indian Ocean islands, camera a new project is being planned.
As part of the three-year project called Global FinPrint, conservationists will place video cameras on the ocean floor and bait sharks, hoping to catch them on camera. This will allow for an accurate count of the species.
"This setup is called a BRUV: baited remote underwater video. If there are sharks or rays around, they will swim towards the smell and, if they arrive within 80 minutes, they will appear on film and be counted when the researchers play the video back. Just as mammal biologists use camera traps to get a sense of how many tigers or snow leopards there are in a particular location," the project's website reads.
"A recent International Union for Conservation of Nature report indicated that we don't have the data we need to accurately assess the current population status for almost half of shark and ray species. Results from Global FinPrint will provide critical trend analyses and establish baselines in places that have never before been systematically assessed," said Dune Ives, senior director of philanthropy at Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Inc.
