My comments on New York’s proposed new shark fishing regulations

Posted on August 14 by David Shiffman

Following a growing problem of mishandling of species of conservation concern, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing some new shark fishing regulations. Here is the text of the letter I sent them supporting some of those proposed regulations, and proposing additional regulations.

A dead sand tiger shark washed up on a New York beach with recreational fishing gear in its mouth. Photo Vincent Cavaleri, via the DEC website.

Dear Commissioner Seggos, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,

As a marine biologist with expertise in the conservation impacts of recreational fisheries on threatened shark species, I write in support of several proposed changes to New York State’s land-based shark fishing regulations. Additionally, while I am not a New York resident, I and my family have vacationed in your beautiful state every summer of my life. I learned to fish in New York from my grandfather, and those experiences contributed to my lifelong love of underwater life.

I studied Florida’s recreational shark fishery and its conservation impacts as part of my Ph.D. at the University of Miami’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. That work contributed to Florida changing their land-based fishing regulations.

New paper: What happened to the world’s first certified sustainable shark fishery?

Posted on June 26 by David Shiffman

In 2011, the world’s first fishery for sharks was certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council*. The British Columbia spiny dogfish fishery made major news in fisheries management and ocean conservation world, where the possible existence of sustainable shark fisheries has been debated intensely. A few years later, the fishery voluntarily withdrew their certification, and never publicly said why.

I wanted to know what happened with this scientific mystery. So, with the help of Chuck Bangley and Catherine Macdonald and funding support from the Liber Ero Postdoctoral Fellowship program, I organized a research expedition to find out. The results of our expedition can be found in our new paper (LINK,) (OPEN ACCESS AUTHOR COPY) but in this blog post, I’d like to explain what we did, what we found, and why we think it’s important.

One year of “Why Sharks Matter:” What’s different in shark science and conservation now?

Posted on May 24 by David Shiffman

One year ago today, my book “Why Sharks Matter: A Deep Dive with the World’s Most Misunderstood Predator” was released. Science moves (relatively) rapidly and changes often, with new discoveries every day, and the conservation landscape is similar. This means that it is impossible for anything written about these topics at a discrete moment in time to remain accurate forever.

So, in the interest of accountability, in the interest of continuing to make my book useful for public education about shark science and conservation even as the science and policy landscape changes, and in the interest of keeping notes for myself for any future updated versions of the book, I have been keeping track of things that I wrote at the time that are no longer true, or weren’t quite right at the time. (Please note that some of these facts and figures were already out of date at the time the book was pubished, but that was well after the final text was turned in).

It’s science fiction, until it isn’t.

Posted on January 17 by Andrew Thaler

This piece originally appeared in the farewell issue of the Deep-sea Mining Observer.

Four years ago, I took over the Deep-sea Mining Observer from my predecessor, Arlo Hemphill. Conceived by the Pew Charitable Trust in 2016, The DSM Observer was created to be an online trade journal for the emerging industry as the International Seabed Authority navigated through the creation of an Exploitation Code for Seabed Minerals in the Area. Originally envisioned to run for two years, we continued to cover and report on critical developments into 2022.

After six years, the Deep-sea Mining Observer is coming to close.

During my tenure here, I tried to capture the full breadth of issues surrounding deep-sea mining. We covered the first species to be IUCN Red Listed due to the potential threat of mining. We examined the rise and fall of Nautilus Minerals. We reported the launch of the Patania II nodule collector test vehicle. We investigated how bioprospecting, often put forward as an industry in potential conflict with deep-sea mining, works in practice. We explored the complex political and geologic history of the Rio Grande Rise. We looked at how new technologies may change the financial landscape for seabed mining. We tracked a semi-mysterious cache of polymetallic nodules from the CCZ offered for sale. And we looked at how other industries intersect with deep-sea mining.

A Call to Prioritize Social Equity in Ocean Conservation

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Bucky Villagomez

A Q&A with Nathan Bennett, Laure Katz, and Angelo Villagomez

This piece was originally published on the Blue Nature Alliance website.

Modern conservation practices were largely developed without considering justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Humans have been viewed as separate from nature. Indigenous and local knowledge has been mostly dismissed. And communities have been left out of decisions that directly impact their ocean, land, and heritage.

Even though many efforts have aimed at correcting these and other failings for decades, the worldwide pandemic and highly visible human rights atrocities have spotlighted the need and opportunity to address longstanding social, economic, political, and environmental inequities. While these issues and conversations extend far beyond the conservation community, they are relevant, timely, important, and deserving of urgent attention and action.

New research, “Advancing social equity in and through marine conservation,” recently published in Frontiers in Marine Science explores these issues and calls for steps for improving social equity in ocean conservation efforts. In this Q&A, three of the 21 co-authors, Nathan Bennett, Laure Katz, and Angelo Villagomez, discuss their work and its implications. The Blue Nature Alliance provided financial support for this research and used the research as the basis for our Code of Conduct.

Why is it important to address social equity through ocean conservation?

Angelo: There is strong scientific evidence that we need to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. But in our urgency to protect the ocean, we can exacerbate social inequities if we do not address how decisions are made and who is part of the decision-making process. Generally, marine conservation has not been able to reach its full potential of ideas, knowledge, and action because it has historically been dominated by people, institutions, and organizations that exclude entire communities, knowledge systems, and cultures. Focusing on social equity is not only the right thing to do, but equitable approaches lead to better and longer-lasting outcomes.

Nathan: There are too many examples of conservation initiatives that resulted in disenfranchisement, abrupt displacement, and outright exclusion of local and Indigenous communities. Understandably, this action – or inaction – resulted in hard feelings and opposition to marine conservation. We need more allies, not fewer, to achieve global marine conservation targets. While there has been progress, the marine conservation community needs to continue to learn and incorporate equitable and inclusive approaches.

Discovery of a Great Hammerhead Nursery

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Catherine Macdonald

Happy Shark Week (if you celebrate), and I’m so excited to share our newly published open access paper about our research on juvenile great hammerheads (Sphyrna mokarran) with you! (It’s been hard to keep this one to ourselves).

Great hammerheads are an iconic shark species which have undergone significant population declines globally. In 2019, they were assessed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List, which reported overfishing as the greatest threat to their survival. Great hammerheads are known to make incredible long-range migrations and cross state and international boundaries, making them challenging to protect as adults. Little is known about where they are born or where they spend their early years of their life, although there have been scattered reports of juveniles from the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys, and one report from Georgia.

Identifying habitats that are important to juvenile sharks matters because young sharks are often the most vulnerable individuals in a population, and their survival is vital to the future of their species. Many juvenile sharks spend time in “nursery areas”—places where they are less likely to be eaten by predators, or where food resources are abundant. They then expand their ranges as they age, covering more distance as they grow larger. Identifying nurseries has long been a conservation priority for managers and scientists. After several years of research, our team has collected the first scientific evidence of a nursery area for great hammerhead sharks on the Atlantic coast of the United States—within sight of the skyline of Miami, Florida.

There’s a three-part established test for an area to be identified as a shark nursery: 1) Juvenile sharks are more commonly encountered in that habitat than elsewhere; 2) they remain in the area for extended periods; and 3) The area is used repeatedly over years. Our results demonstrate that this area definitely meets two of these criteria, with preliminary evidence that it also meets the third. We’ve found the same habitat may be a nursery area for several other shark species too, including scalloped hammerheads, another Critically Endangered species!

Getting a handle on workworking chemicals, or sometimes we all need to vent.

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Andrew Thaler

This is Part 2 of Built to Last: A Reflection on Environmentally Conscientious Woodworking.

Walk into any woodshop and you find a shelf full of chemicals. Solvents, paints, varnishes, lacquers, oils, glues, and a host of other exotic and not so exotic solutions are a staple of the craft. These compounds are used to join, clean, prepare, and finish most woodworking projects, as well as maintain your tools. Do any amount of woodworking, and you’ll almost certainly accumulate a shelf of assorted, half-used, chemicals of your own.

What’s almost certainly not present in most woodshops, especially hobbyist woodshops, are the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) for these chemicals. MSDSs tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the hazards associated with commercial chemical compounds. For many common woodworking products, the MSDSs are pretty intense.

I’ll be completely honest here. I have never had MSDSs in my workshop. It was only while doing the background research for this article that I realized I needed to pay more attention to the assorted chemicals involved in the craft, and started compiling all the potential hazards. I suspect that the vast majority of hobbyist woodworkers are the same.

Woodworking chemicals contain irritants, release volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are cut with heavy metals, and are often just plastic. They can be bad for your skin, bad for your lungs, and bad for your brain. When produced, disposed of, accidentally discharged, or as they break down through regular wear, they can release harmful compounds into the environment. If not disposed of correctly, some of these products will spontaneously burst into flames.

I turned my woodshop into a personal solar farm.

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Andrew Thaler

This is Part 1 of Built to Last: A Reflection on Environmentally Conscientious Woodworking.

For almost a decade, I’ve dreamed of building an off-grid solar system to power my woodworking, provide reliable back-up power for my home, and reduce the number of 2-stroke engines in my life. This was finally the year where I had the time and resources to do it.

My workshop isn’t big. The 12-foot by 16-foot shed houses not just my tools and workbenches, but also all our yard and gardening supplies, storage for assorted seasonal gear and decorations, and a pile of robot parts. So I needed a compact system that still delivered the amps.

Building a small off-grid solar system is simpler than you might think. Building a small off-grid solar system that can run power tools is a bit more complicated.

Built to Last: A Reflection on Environmentally Conscientious Woodworking

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Andrew Thaler

I make things. I make weird electronic things. I make scientific instrument things. And I make things out of wood. I make a lot of things out of wood.

When I’m not working on marine conservation technology, educational programming, or high seas policy, I’m usually out back in the woodshop, building furniture, functional art, and other woodcrafts. This probably isn’t a surprise. For the last eleven years, one of the most popular articles at Southern Fried Science has been How to build a canoe from scratch on a graduate student stipend.

Every few years, I turn an analytical eye on my hobbies, assessing the lifecycle of the materials I use, the sources of inefficiency, and, most importantly, how the practice of the craft aligns with or deviates from my personal environmental ethic. In other words, I do a sustainability audit on my recreational activities. For the last year, I’ve focused on understanding and improving the environmental impacts of my woodworking.

Saving sea turtles in Dominica with a conservation-first Rum Distillery

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Andrew Thaler

In the hours before dawn on one mid-October morning, I climbed into the jumpseat of a C-131 cargo plane, and began a long, complicated journey to the island of Dominica. It was 2017 and Hurricane Maria had cut a swath of destruction across much of the Caribbean, but it was Dominica that first bore the full force of the storm as it roared into the Americas.

When I began working with Jake Levenson (Oceans Forward) early the year before, we were developing a marine conservation and robotics program to bring to students on the Island, but the storm changed everything. Though my first trip to Dominica was far different from what we had planned, it was the beginning of a long partnership with Levenson, the Dominica Sea Turtle Conservation Organization, and friends and colleagues from Dominica and around the world committed to marine conservation and answering the big question: can a small island create a model for financially sustainable marine conservation that is resilient to both the changing climate and the ever-shifting winds of ecotourism?

From that question, and over many conversations with stakeholders, experts, funders, and community leaders, the Rosalie Conservation Center–a center of learning and research as well as a fish hatchery and a rum distillery–was born.