[Jasmin] Sharks are really important parts of our ecosystem because they actually
serve as sort of police.
[Carlee] They really keep our ocean cycle healthy. They're very curious animals. They just kind of check you out.
[Amani] If more people were able to see them up close, they'd be better understood than they are right now.
[Jaida] I often get asked what would a world without sharks look like and my answer is always
I don't know and I don't want to know.
[Jaida] MISS is Minorities in Shark Sciences.
It is a nonprofit organization founded by four black women in shark science made to support
women and gender minorities of color in the field of shark science.
[Carlee] MISS started in the summer of 2020 around that time that was when a lot of civil unrest was happening
in our country. Most recently to the start of MISS, the Chris Cooper Incident where a lady called the cops
on a black man while he was birdwatching so that kind of sparked a movement on Twitter.
[Jasmin] Through a hashtag #BlackInNature and from this hashtag, I was able to find Carlee who had posted a
tweet about her doing shark research and that was the first time that I had ever met another
black woman that did shark science and so I was really excited and I replied to her tweet and
said, "oh, you do shark science! Me too" and then the other co-founders popped in, "oh, me three. Me four."
and we jokingly said we should start a club.
[Amani] From the idea of MISS to when we launched, it there was two weeks in between.
We ran MISS almost for a whole year without meeting each other. We used Zoom and Slack and texting.
[Jaida] It was born from the internet and from civil unrest and from us being
like I'm sick of being the only black woman in the room at any of these conferences.
It's not only a way for us to help increase diversity in the field in the future, but a
great way for us to all come together as women and gender minorities of color currently in the field.
[Jasmin] We offer several programs so for our K-12 outreach, we have a program called Science by the Sea
that invites local kids to come out and learn about the marine ecosystem.
We also have a summer camp which we will be launching for the first time this summer
for teens 13 to 17, and we have our Gill Guardians program, which is content that lives online and
then for our undergraduate to masters students, we have our workshops which are for people who
are actively trying to get into the field of shark research and conservation
but haven't gotten those necessary field skills to be able to do that.
[Carlee] Our purpose with these programs is to create a more equitable pathway into shark science
and break a lot of barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from entering this field because getting hands-on field
research in shark science is usually a pay-to-play type thing so you have to
pay for experience or maybe you won't even get experience until you go to grad school. And these
research workshops are really beneficial because we provide travel, we pay for their stay, we pay for
any associated fees so that it's completely free for women of color trying to get into this field.
[Amani] So I knew the people at Field School before we actually started MISS. They're a really big
reason that I'm in shark science today and when we decided we wanted to make MISS, they were the first
people to say, we will support you in this and they donated their boat and their time and their money
for us to be able to do the most basic thing for MISS that we wanted to do which was our workshop.
A lot of the animals that catch around here have to swim to breathe with the exception of like
nurse sharks and sawfish and things like that. Things like hammerheads, tigers, bulls, black tips...
[Jaida] So the workshops I think are always a ton of fun. Basically, what we do is we have people come
out on a Friday and then Saturday and Sunday, we go out and catch sharks and we tag them
and release them again. So Friday is usually just kind of like a get-to-know-you time. We'll do a
little, like a Shark 101. Sometimes, we'll go over what kind of sharks will you see here in
Biscayne Bay. Kind of creating that community on the boat and then on Saturday, we go out and we
drumline, which is how you get the bigger sharks, which is always very exciting. So we've got a
weight and a baited hook at the bottom and then a float at the top. Basically, we let it sit for
a little while and then we pull it back up and if there's a shark on the line, we start a workup.
[Jasmin] The first thing that we do is we take measurements so we'll take what we call the precaudal length,
which is right to the bend of that tail, then we take the fork length, which is where the
tail kind of splits, and then we take total, which is the total length of the animal
from nose to tail, and then we'll take girth so it's how wide the animal is. If we get a hammerhead,
we'll also take a measurement of how wide that cephalofoil or the hammer part of the hammerhead
is. Then we will also take thin clips similar to how you can take a fingernail clipping
and get genetic information from that and then we do what's called a biopsy which is where we
take a little bit of muscle tissue and then the last thing that we do is take a sample of blood.
[Jaida] And all this information can tell us a ton of different things about the animal
like what it's been eating, where it's been and kind of things like that. When we pull up a shark
everyone has their individual jobs and we get the shark back in the water as quickly as possible.
It's always amazing to see their first time, you know, like working on a shark like this.
[Amani] When they see a shark for the first time, that's not in an aquarium, that's not on a movie, but they
physically see it and get to touch it, that level of excitement is just so contagious and I get
equally as excited just by seeing their faces and how thrilled they are that they're actually like
next to a shark, especially when they never thought they would be able to see one.
[Participant India] I really liked when we got the giant bull shark
on board and I got to help measure it out. I thought that was really cool.
[Carlee] We have women from all different types of life stages coming to learn shark research because it's
a passion that they've had for a long time but never had the opportunity to pursue it. We've had
a few of these workshop participants go on to do MISS fellowships, do more field research.
[Amani] And it's been super rewarding to get responses from people who are members and them saying you've
made me want to be in shark science. You've created a space for me where I feel really safe in shark science.
You've helped me get this opportunity and now I have this job that I never thought I would have.
[Jasmin] A lot of people have stereotypes about who people are based on their identities
so thinking that a woman can't do shark science because she's not strong enough or fit enough to
be able to handle sharks or thinking that people of color aren't interested in marine science
because of ideas surrounding, oh well they don't swim and they don't go in water. You kind of
feel like you have to prove yourself, which can be really frustrating.
[Carlee] It's so important to teach the next generation and to give them opportunities in marine science because
a lot of underrepresented communities aren't even presented with the idea of becoming
a marine scientist or a shark scientist.
[Amani] It really makes a big difference when you have people who are in your corner that you know are
willing to go to bat for you, support you a hundred percent of the time. It brings out I think the the best in
you and other people and it brings out your inner scientists really well.
MISS brought me this much larger community of all of these people around the world who are also interested
in shark science and it's given me the opportunity to be the representation that I wish I had when I was a kid.