I’ve always envisioned myself traveling around the world scuba diving every day, while researching one of the world’s most underestimated sea creatures. During my first experience diving with sharks, I noticed that everything people assumed and feared about sharks didn’t even exist. They were so calm and happy in their home, and even though they were curious about me, there was no initial reaction to harm me. I invaded their home, and yet they still continued to swim freely all around me. The more time I spend interacting with sharks, the more I fall in love with the career path I have chosen.
Within the past 3 weeks at SASC, I’ve really gotten a closer look at what life is like as a shark biologist. I really enjoy the amount of time I get to spend with sharks, especially the endemic species only found in South Africa. Shark workups have been my favorite part so far! This process includes tagging the sharks, taking a fin clip from its dorsal fin, and taking measurements and weight. I also really enjoy feeding the sharks that we have in the lab. We’ve also done things like hand lining, going out and finding cool species for the lab, and snorkeling for sharks. Snorkeling has been quite the experience in the freezing South African waters. I had no feeling in my body by the end of it, but it was definitely worth it. We saw sharks swimming in their natural habitat, kelp forest, massive starfish, and octopus. We also saw loads of Hagfish, which are not my favorite sea creatures, and I really do my best to avoid them as much as possible.
This past week we had the opportunity to deploy baited remote underwater video (BRUV) devices. With an attached camera and a baited canister, we deployed the BRUVs in the ocean meters down. The purpose of these devices is to capture footage underwater to count and identify species that are found at each location of deployment. We analyzed hours of footage and identified species that were caught, as well as made fun of each other for how funny we looked in the video as the camera caught us deploying the BRUV. We did catch some exciting footage of a hagfish and an octopus fighting, which hasn’t been seen on BRUV footage before!
Every time we go out into the field, we can always expect to find a lot of really exciting activity. We’ve seen so many pods with hundreds of dolphins. We’ve also seen a lot of massive Bryde’s whales, and of course lots of different species of sharks. The Pajama Shark has become one of my favorite sharks in South Africa! As an upcoming elasmobranch conservationist, it’s really exciting to experience first-hand what I always dreamed of doing in life.