You got so many different species.
And they'll probably give us a little bit of a rodeo
while we're handling them.
This is a lot of sharks all at once.
It's a tiny bit of stress
We're gonna hope for the best
I'm Jasmin Graham, marine biologist and shark scientist,
and I'm here in Biscayne Bay for the first day of our Diversifying
Ocean Sciences workshop, the year long program where students
learn all about ocean science, and then they get to apply those skills
for a week long intensive Hands-On Experience aboard the Garvin.
Today, we'll be doing what's called a shark survey,
where we'll go out, catch and release some sharks, take some samples,
which we will use to understand the health of the population here.
This helps us better understand the species that are here
how plentiful they are,
and study the human impacts facing sharks in this area.
There's a lot of really incredible species found here, several
of which actually use Biscayne Bay as a nursery ground for their young.
Nursery grounds are super important for endangered species
are super important for endangered species because if you have a healthy nursery,
you have sharks making it to adulthood, reproducing
and replenishing the population.
We really need to find some little baby black tips.
Again, adorable. We love baby sharks.
And it would be really nice to get some data for that species.
Participants are going to learn a lot of really cool things.
They're going to learn how to do what's called a long line.
They're going to learn how to set drum lines
right?
They're going to learn how to take scientific data from sharks,
including measurements, tagging fin clips, muscle biopsy,
and they'll also get to watch how we draw blood.
Today we're doing one of our shark surveys.
Hey, guys, I'm Amani. I'm also one of the co-founders
of Minorities in Shark Sciences.
It is an honor to us at Minorities in Shark Sciences to provide opportunities.
I'm from Bangalore. t's a landlocked city
In underdeveloped countries like India,
You can't do a lot of live shark based research.
Because of the funding that we receive,
there are all kinds of platforms that we have.
So this workshop is like really cool
to be very close to a live shark and pretty nose to handle them.
But equally, I want to like collect good scientific data that can help
improve scientific, you know, the knowledge within the world.
All of our Diversifying Ocean Sciences participants are early career,
emerging scientists that are eager to get into the field of ocean research.
We're going to be long lining
and typically with this type of fishing, we'll usually catch smaller sharks.
So one of the things that I really hope we catch is a blacknose.
These are a little bit of a smaller species.
They often have this little black splotch on their nose.
Another shark that we might catch is a smaller blacktip
the dead giveaway for these guys is that their fins will have black tips on them.
And this really beautiful, gray
kind of lateral stripe right on the side of their body.
We also might find a nurse shark, which I absolutely love.
They're just completely brown. They're really kind of flat faces.
And the last species that we may or may not catch is a bonnethead.
They have that cephalofoil, but it's shaped like a little bonnet.
And they are incredibly tiny in comparison to the larger hammerhead.
All right.
So for this demonstration, we are going to use our friend
Vanna White Shark here so we can work the shark up as fast as possible,
get them back in the water.
So very important.
This is the bitey end. And this is the slappy end.
And this is where you live, right here, away from the bitey end
and away from the slappy end.
So we take the same clip from the dorsal fin and we use that for genetics.
And then the next job is tagging.
It's sort of like an identification number.
So the way that we do this, we have our tagger.
So we push in
and then we'll just give that a little tug to make sure that stuck in there.
And then one more time, you're going to want to read
that number out nice and loud for the data person.
And that's how you work the shark.
So this is a tuna clip.
We're gonna be clipping that on to the black line.
So here we have our anchor
you're going to go travel across this line.
You see a red part of the line.
This is what buoys are going to be attached to.
So we're going to have a buoys on each side with a tuna clip on it.
And then we're going to let it go out while we are setting it.
So we just set our two long lines and we are waiting.
They're soaking for about an hour, and we'll go and haul them in,
see what we get. All that being said, who knows what we're going to catch?
Who knows if we catch anything?
That's why they call it fishing, not catching
Tiburon! Tiburon!
So here we have a black nose.
Chris is about to draw blood.
There's someone with a stopwatch
that records to help measure stress physiology.
So we're going to have someone take a biopsy or a muscle tissue sample,
which we can use to look at stable isotopes and also toxins and the sharks.
We will put a tag in it and take a fin clip for genetics.
This part of the shark doesn't have as many neuro receptors as, say, our bodies.
And it's not an evolutionary advantage for that.
So they've come to not feel as much as we do.
And we will do second blood to look at how its stress
went up or down from the workup, and then we will release it
And right now we have a line of sharks.
So there are two sharks behind this one
Kinda moving a little fast So we got a traffic jam, so to speak.
It's important to move fast.
Some sharks are what we call obligate ram ventilators, meaning
they have to keep swimming to breathe.
There are other sharks that can buccal pump like nurse sharks and lemon sharks
where they can just sit on the bottom and they use their muscles in their cheeks
to pull water over their gills so they don't have to swim.
So our obligate ram ventilators need that PVC pipe and simulate
how it would be if they were swimming. And they do have water flowing
over their gills.
They're getting oxygen, but their bodies are designed to be in water.
So they're actually feeling more gravity
than they're used to when they're out of water.
So we try to move pretty quickly in trying to get them back in the water
so that they can go on and live their lives.
Another one.
They got that platform.
Nurse shark on this long line
This is a lot of sharks all at once.
It's a tiny bit of stress!
Another one that needs to skip the line here
However, now there is
moments where things are going to get a little...
You know, when things are going to get a little hectic and stressful.
It wasn't terrible.
It wasn't that bad. It was a little stressful.
We grab a fin clip to look at its genetics and learn more about it now.
Yeah, it wasn't that bad.
t's fine. I feel at peace right now.
Now we have a blacktip a big chonky blacktip.
So blacktips gets to be much larger than the black noses.
My favorite thing about these blacktips, they have this very pretty little
etch, like Z for Zorro on the side of their body.
They're really cool.
So we just saw a blacktip, which happened to be a re-tag
and I absolutely love when we get re-tags.
This means that we tagged it previously either this year or another year.
In this case of that blacktip, we tagged it back in April of 2019
and we just caught it today in 2023.
And with all of the data that we've been taking all week,
one of the things that we can see is how much the shark has grown.
So I always really love when we get a recapture
because it really gets to kind of bring that data collection full circle
and see kind of how they're growing and how they're behaving
and if they're actually staying in the area.
Shark!
It's pretty exciting.
So we should be having like that direct.
Contact with the shark.
And so it's, it's a really special moment for you.
When are you like, Oh, this is what I want to do.
This is what I like.
So, yes. It's a crucial moment in your life, I think.
It was, for sure!
Sadly, our time has come to a close,
But this is "see you later," not "goodbye."
Keep us up to date on what you do, where you go.
I had no idea that I was going to get the hands on experience that I did.
There was plenty of times that I was, like, scared or nervous.
It was more of, like, the excitement and being able to learn,
like, kind of overrules my nervousness and fear.
But it was.
It was a great experience overall.
Each step of the way, there was always someone there next to me to help me.
My life was something that I got to see.
My first live shark was when I came to the US here as part of the
MISS fellowship. This was my first time to do a lot of these techniques.
It's an opportunity that the MISS has created for me, just having to fly
all the way from India to the US, like, which took me almost two years.
I'm not a person who would like scream or screech out about my enjoyment,
but deep down I was like crying because I got to see my first shark.
It's also a lot of different emotions,
which I really don't know how to express about them.
And so that's how I felt.
Now, I always find it so funny when people see their first shark
and that initial smile that they get just brings me so much joy.
Yeah, especially since we got so many different species.
That's pretty rad.
And I think that they learned a lot too,
which I feel like was an exciting experience for them.
Yeah, I think that these types of workshops are so meaningful,
especially just getting to have a bunch of people of color and women on the boat.
Oh, yes. Your first experience.
Yeah, I can't imagine! That's so rare!
So I think things would have been so amazing if my first experience
had been like this, where it's just a bunch of women of color,
especially to have mentors that look like you.
Yeah. Just so impactful.
It makes me really happy.
Especially when students tell us
that they're excited and that they need to think about it
as a career path because it makes me feel like we're actually
making a change and like doing something that we wanted to do what we started.
We're really excited.
We had several people that were like, Oh, I never really thought about sharks,
but you just opened up all of these possibilities, right?
I'm like, it worked!
I think that they're going to go far.