Southern Fried Science

Who read tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society? I asked, they answered!

July 17, 2013October 28, 2013 David Shiffman

As those of you who follow me on twitter know, I’ve been live-tweeting the American Elasmobranch Society conference. The meeting is the largest gathering of shark, skate and ray scientists in the world, and provided lots of opportunities to share interesting shark science and conservation news to my followers. In case you missed it, all the sessions are now Storify-ed and stored here on the blog (Plenary address, Biology and Conservation of Rays Symposium, Ecology and Conservation, Best Student Presentation/Gruber Award talks , and Physiology Behavior and Genetics).

Mary Canady of Comprendia was kind enough to compile some technical statistics on the use of the conference hashtags (#AES2013 for the American Elasmobranch Society portion of the meeting, #JMIH13 for the overall Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists). Thanks, Mary!

Between July 8th and today, there have been 1,568 unique #AES2013 tweets. Approximately half of the #AES2013 have been re-tweeted. There were 218 unique twitter users that tweeted at least one #AES2013 tweet (including RT-ing). There were approximately 10 AES members present at the meeting who tweeted at least once, including several who created a twitter account at the meeting. At least 6 AES members who were not present at the meeting followed along from home using twitter. We also took questions from twitter during the expert panel discussion at the ray symposium. For those of you not familiar with online altmetric speak, this can be summarized as “a very high level of audience engagement and interaction.”

In comparison, #JMIH13 had 1,602 unique tweets- only a handful more despite the fact that AES is a relatively small component of the overall JMIH. There were 88 unique twitter users who tweeted at least one #JMIH13 tweet, and about 1/3 of total tweets were RT-ed.

Finally, I asked the people following along on twitter to tell me a little about themselves. Here are their responses.

Tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society: Physiology, Behavior and Genetics

July 17, 2013October 28, 2013 David Shiffman

The American Elasmobranch Society is a non-profit professional organization of shark, ray, skate, and chimaera scientists. Each year, AES holds an annual conference in a different North American city where members meet and present their research. The 2013 meeting took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico from July 10-15th. The full schedule of talks (including other societies participating in the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) can be found here.

Presented below are selected tweets from the Physiology, Behavior, and Genetics sessions.

Tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society: Gruber Award (best student presentation) talks

July 17, 2013 David Shiffman

Science

davesquare

Below are selected tweets from the Gruber Award (best student presentation) talks.

Tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society: Dr. Gregor Cailliet’s plenary address

July 17, 2013October 28, 2013 David Shiffman

davesquare

The American Elasmobranch SocietyAmerican Elasmobranch Society is a non-profit professional organization of shark, ray, skate, and chimaera scientists. Each year, AES holds an annual conference in a different North American city where members meet and present their research. The 2013 meeting took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico from July 10-15th. The full schedule of talks (including other societies participating in the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) can be found here.

Here are selected tweets from Dr. Gregor Cailliet’s plenary address, “unraveling the secret lives of sharks and rays”.

Tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society: Ecology and Conservation

July 16, 2013October 28, 2013 David Shiffman

The American Elasmobranch Societyis a non-profit professional organization of shark, ray, skate, and chimaera scientists. Each year, AES holds an annual conference in a different North American city where members meet and present their research. The 2013 meeting took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico from July 10-15th. The full schedule of talks (including other societies participating in the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists) can be found here.

Presented below are selected tweets from the Ecology and Conservation sessions.

Tweets from the American Elasmobranch Society: Biology and Conservation of Rays Symposium

July 16, 2013October 28, 2013 David Shiffman

Presented here are selected tweets from the Biology, Ecology, and Management of Durophagous Stingrays Symposium at the 2013 American Elasmobranch Society meeting.

5 reasons you should attend ScienceOnline Oceans

July 5, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman 1 Comment

This October, I’ll be hosting ScienceOnline Oceans at the University of Miami. Registration is now open (register here), and we still have a few spots available. Here are 5 reasons why you should join us. 1) The people. The list of ScienceOnline Oceans attendees includes scientists, students, conservationists, journalists, and science communicators from all over … Read More “5 reasons you should attend ScienceOnline Oceans” »

World’s leading experts say there’s a problem with false balance in conservation journalism; Steve disagrees

July 4, 2013July 16, 2013 David Shiffman 20 Comments

Science

davesquare

False balance in the media occurs when a journalist gives equal coverage, and therefore the perception of equal validity, to both sides of a story. While this sounds preferable to today’s hyper-politicized media, sometimes both sides of a story aren’t equally valid. For example, when the overwhelming consensus of the expert medical community says that vaccines do not cause autism but a famous former actress says they do, giving both sides equal coverage can be not only frustrating, but harmful to public health. The same is true of early reporting on whether cigarettes are bad for you. Giving equal coverage of the global community of expert climate scientists and spokespeople for the oil and gas industry who claim that climate science isn’t “settled” can also be problematic, as can coverage of other scientific topics.

Image via http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/sciencetoolkit_04

Though it is discussed less frequently in this context, overfishing and marine conservation issues can also feature some fairly egregious examples of false balance. Coverage of a proposal to list great hammerhead sharks under the Endangered Species Act in yesterday’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel provides a useful case study.

Is Whale Wars a waste of money?

July 2, 2013October 27, 2013 Guest Writer 27 Comments

Conservation

Portobello Road

Lindsey Peavey is a PhD student in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a marine ecologist whose research seeks to find a sustainable balance between human resource use and species conservation. You can follow her work on Twitter (@lepeavey) and her blog, turtlesinthedeep.org.

Last December, I sat down to enjoy a pizza pie and draft beer with my friend Neal, a 6-foot, 5-inch, 280-lb. (think offensive lineman), die-hard conservative republican. He was giddy with excitement to talk with me about one of his favorite TV shows, Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars.” Knowing that I’m a tree hugger by nature and a marine biologist by trade, he thought an hour of “Save the whales!” camaraderie was ahead. He was shocked when I let out a long sigh and confessed, “I’m not a fan of Whale Wars.”

Neal was completely deflated. He demanded to know why I didn’t like the show. Shouldn’t I, of all people, be Sea Shepherd’s No. 1 fan? I offered my gripes: It’s outrageously expensive to operate a vessel like Sea Shepherd’s SSS Steve Irwin in the extremely volatile and dangerous environment of intercepting Japanese whaling vessels in the Antarctic — on the order of tens of thousands of dollars a day. Although funds are available to support these operations, the return on investment is unclear. How many whales are actually being saved?

Largest U.S. Shark Fishery: Coming to a School Lunch Near You?

July 2, 2013October 28, 2013 Chuck Bangley 8 Comments

Conservation

Spiny dogfish sharks have had a complicated history when it comes to fisheries management, going from hated pest to crashed fishery to conservation concern and now one of two certified-sustainable shark fisheries ever (the other is the Pacific species of spiny dogfish). The story didn’t end with being certified sustainable though, and recently this fishery has been in the awkward position of keeping itself sustainable while also making sure fishermen can actually sell their catch. Dogfish quotas have been leaping up annually since the Atlantic fishery was first considered for MSC certification, much to the chagrin of conservationists who would prefer the management plan pay more attention to the life history of these small but slow-growing sharks. However, these increased quotas, combined with weakening demand in Europe as a result of the economic downturn, have lead to a massive surplus of dogfish in the U.S. market and dramatically lowered the price fishermen receive at the fish house. Meanwhile, seafood chefs are attempting to get consumers to try out species they’ve previously overlooked (mainly because many of their former favorites are severely depleted), with dogfish sharks among the former “trash fish.” While this movement gains momentum, fishing industry groups and 19 Senators and House Reps from coastal fishing states are exploring a different option, one that may put spiny dogfish in your local school lunch.