June 5th, 2010

Another great day out with the R.J. Dunlap Marine
Conservation Program!

June 5th, 2010

Tired and sore after the previous day’s 10 sharks worth of excitement, we awoke anticipating another amazing day, and of course we were right. The day began with a nice big breakfast sandwich order and it only got better from there. We pulled out of the dock already hot and sweaty, but eager and excited nonetheless, and headed out to the edge of a reef, about 8 or 9 miles offshore. It was an especially hot, but a gorgeous day, and so any downtime we had while waiting for our drumlines to soak, we spent swimming in the perfect deep blue ocean surrounding our boat.

RJ Dunlap Crew posing in the water, hoping for a Hammerhead Shark! (click to enlarge)

Looking down, all you could see was a deep sapphire blue, and we all agreed that the only thing that would make the swim better would be to see a Great Hammerhead swimming gracefully up towards us. While, not surprisingly, this did not happen, we did catch a bull shark, two sandbar sharks, and a nurse shark that managed to pull itself free before we were able to secure it. Out of a total of 20 drumlines, we pulled up our second one to find a beautiful female 7 ft 4 inch bull shark on the end of the line. We quickly fitted her with a satellite tag and named her Rose, the second bull shark in the Atlantic to be spot tagged. She is named after our assistant dean of advancement at RSMAS, a woman who helps raise funds for the program and helps with program development. Welcome to the family Rose!

Rose, our second satellite tagged Bull Shark, welcome to the family! (click to enlarge)

Rose, get’s her new satellite tag. (click to enlarge)

On our ninth and second to last drumlines, we pulled up a pair of 6 ft 7 inch male and female sandbar sharks, a stunning golden colored shark that seems to be quite popular to the area.

Shark Team working fast to get the shark comfortable. (click to enlarge)

Shark Interns getting ready to take a biopsy from a Sandbar Shark. (click to enlarge)

After another exciting day out with the R.J. Dunlap Conservation program and one more shark swimming around with a satellite tag, we all agreed it was a very successful day!

Stay tuned for more sharky adventures and don’t forget to follow the movements of our sharks at
http://www.sharkresearch.rsmas.miami.edu/learning-tools/

Yours,

Fiona Graham (Shark Program Intern)