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On July 2nd, 2007, FRD researchers departed San Diego to begin their annual pelagic shark survey in the southern California Bight aboard the NOAA research vessel, David Starr Jordan. The survey is conducted to track trends in abundance of juvenile and sub-adult pelagic sharks. Shark tagging is also carried out to determine movements and obtain information on shark age and growth.
Daily Updates
Check in with the head of our Fish Ecology Program, Russ Vetter
, as he sends daily reports detailing life at sea and talk about the sharks they are catching.
Watch a 20 minute video showing exactly how scientists catch, tag, and release sharks for abundance studies safely!
More Information
A reward is offered for information on tagged sharks, and tagging Posters have been distributed in both English and Español. Efforts to determine abundance trends from the commercial fishery data have been complicated by changes in fishing methods and areas and regulatory restriction over time, which have resulted in wide swings in both catch and distribution that are difficult to interpret. These shark research cruises are carried out cooperatively with the California Dept. Fish and Game and with Mexican researchers with CICESE in Ensenada. A mako shark catch time series is being developed, which is linked to an historical time-series of logbook and landings data from a former commercial mako longline fishery in the southern California Bight during 1988-1991.