Will this Jaws have a sequel?

Before - pale, brown haired crew cut, and sporting a nice double chin

In the grand scheme of post-college experiences, I've found a diamond in the rough.  It's been no secret that, as of late, the job market for recent graduates is about as penetrable as an abstinent Catholic eskimo girl with a black-belt and a gun.  While the jobs are slowly resurfacing in hilarious, ironic ways (Bret's a laxer), the golden ticket that once was a college degree has seemingly lost some luster.  Grad school was a good option, and, to all of my friends reading this as you near the end of either your first year, or, for those who've finished, your first beer, congrats, you'll be making much more money a lot sooner than me...

However, while web surfing aimlessly during Music 100 lectures senior year, I stumbled across my own answer to that evil fucking question drilled into the ears of every approaching graduate, "What's next?"  

Sharks and the Bahamas, that's what was next.   

It took a long time, seven months, to find out if i'd been accepted, and I would've been crushed if I got rejected.  But I didn't, and the past four months have played out more like a surreal vacation than an "internship".  While I knew I'd see and do some cool things while I was here, my experience has well surpassed even my highest expectations.  

As far as the sharks are concerned, I've been in the water with nine species including, among others, large tigers, bulls, and hammerheads.  I've held juvenile lemon sharks on a daily basis and, like today, held them while surgery was performed to implant a transmitter.  I've even seen and held newborn lemon sharks, still with an umbilical cord and placental sac, only moments after watching their mother give birth to them.  While some people would pay good money to go out fishing for barracuda, i've gone multiple times as part of a day's "work", and can now hold my breath for nearly two-and-a-half minutes after much practice free diving and spear fishing.  

Then there's the people.  It's rare to ever find yourself completely surrounded by people with very similar interests.  It's even more rare to have that situation arise on a small, secluded Bahamian island with little else but your house, an airport, a restaurant, and two bars with sandy floors.  Needless to say, i've made some amazing friends and, living together in a glorified double-wide, we all know each other a little too well.  

 I've had a lot of downtime here and, like this time last year, I find myself wondering what's next.  I'm beginning to acknowledge that I really am wired for science, and I actually think that, if i do choose to pursue biology, I'd like to work with sharks.  However, the realist in me knows nobody's wallet has ever grown very fat researching an animal most of the world loves to hate, and I still struggle with making a commitment.  Having said that, thinking about leaving on saturday is already making me miss sharks in a very personal way, and I'm not sure I will find another path as rewarding as working with these animals that I love. 

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading this blog the past few months.  Although I admittedly did lose a little steam with the blog, i've really enjoyed writing about my experience down here and honestly hope that it's been interesting to read.  I'm considering continuing to write about environmental issues I find interesting, and so I would really like to hear what you've though about my blog and if you would honestly continue to read what I write.  So, if you're reading this, please don't hesitate to write a comment and let me know what you think.

-Tyler

After...

                   

When life gives you lemons...

Me holding a juvenile Lemon shark in tonic while Jon performs surgery to implant a transmitter

I'm pretty amazed it's taken me nearly four months to think of the pun that titles this entry, however, in light of the story I am about to tell, it's quite fitting.  As promised, I'll now explain the natural spectacle I witnessed that made me feel more privileged than a shoe salesmen with a foot fetish.

It was last friday, the final day of the UNB shark course, and I was driving one of five skiffs for chasedowns in the lagoon.  A chasedown is a method of catching larger sharks in shallow water and, big surprise here, it involves chasing the shark using multiple boats to corral it until it tires out.  Once the shark is tired out, the main chase boat gets alongside the shark and pokes it repeatedly with a dip-net wrapped in rope.  Once the shark bites the net, it is pulled alongside the boat while a tail rope with an attached float is put on.  The shark is then released to give it time to recover before the workup.

Going into the chasedown, there were several things I was worried about.  First, the lagoon is very shallow (0-1 meters) and, even at high tide, you need to keep the boat going fast so as to stay high on the water and not bottom out in certain areas.  Secondly, early May is prime time for pregnant Lemon sharks entering the lagoon to give birth, and all of the staff wanted to avoid chasing a pregnant Lemon because of the risk of inducing birth.

Needless to say, Doc spotted a large Lemon, and from that point on we were chasing her like divorce lawyers after Tiger Wood's wife.  After catching her and attaching the tail float, we released the shark and waited for her to recover.  However, instead of swimming around slowly, she proceeded to sit on the bottom and not move, prompting Emily to get in the water and try to get her swimming.  It's one thing to see a person walking down the street with a monster dog on a leash, but it's quite another thing to watch a friend take a ten foot Lemon shark for a stroll.  It became pretty apparent that the shark was pretty exhausted and likely very stressed, at which point we began to become a bit nervous.  After about twenty minutes of stop-go swimming, when the shark had finally begun to swim constantly, suddenly Emily yelled out.

"Baby shark!"

Sure enough, I looked a few feet behind the mother and could see a baby lemon shark thrashing in the water like a drunk toddler.  At this point chaos erupted.  Of the 23 people on the boats, only seven of us were sharklab staff and the rest were students who didn't have the slightest clue what to do, let alone how to drive the boats they suddenly found themselves abandoned on as the seven of us scrambled to collect the babies.

Sharks are fish and many give birth to litters of live pups.  As a result, the one baby shark Emily spotted was surely not to be the last.  As a result, for the next hour, a good part of which I spent running through waist-deep water, we raced to follow the shark and collect the 50-60 centimeter pups that the mother intermittently popped out like excess baggage.   We shuttled the vulnerable pups closer to the shelter of the mangroves where the mother likely would've given birth under normal conditions.

Twice during the ordeal, I caught and held in my hands a newborn Lemon shark with the umbilical cord still attached, only moments after it's mother had given birth to it.  Standing there, not only witnessing a wild shark giving birth, but holding it's newborn baby in my hands, was my own version of a religious experience and hopefully the closest i'll come to feeling like a father for a long time. While shark skin is normally rough and easy to grip, the newborns were covered in a film that made them extremely slippery and hard to hold.  All said and done, we collected, ID'd, and took DNA from twelve baby lemon sharks by the time the mother was finished and we watched her swim away.  It is important to know that, despite having likely induced the birthing, the shark was almost certainly going to give birth later that day or night and the baby sharks were not born prematurely.  Despite the stressful and chaotic nature of the whole thing, the experience was incredible and, for someone who loves sharks, about as cool as it gets.

UNB Course, Bulls, and Babies

230 cm Cuban Night Shark

Not sure i've ever posted this statistic before, but it is estimated that nearly 70 million sharks are killed each year.  What's worse, these sharks are killed simply for their fins, and the vast majority are simply rolled back into the ocean, often times still alive.  Now, if you consider that it takes many years for most sharks to reach sexual maturity (approximately twelve years for lemon sharks), it's not hard to grasp the dire circumstances facing sharks.  Finally, and most depressingly, all this is occurring due to the demand of a billion Chinese for the status-bolstering soup for which the tasteless shark fin adds texture...

If you don't believe me I'm not surprised, as killing sharks flies well under the radar of most people, and, even when people do hear about it, they're not too bothered because, lets face it, sharks eat people right? It's bullshit and truly painful to think about the downfall of one the oldest and most highly evolved animals on the planet at the hands of soup slurping minions and redneck "I'm a real man!" fishermen with brains twice the size yet a third as intelligent as the fish they slaughter. 

Alright, I got a little carried away there, but, needless to say, you can understand why it feels so good to see that, at least in Bimini, sharks still appear to be doing alright.  Another shark biology course, this time from the University of New Brunswick (random i know), came to the lab and stayed from April 26 to May 1st.  This time around the weather cooperated and the students got to have a lot of different shark experiences.  The highlights included a hammerhead dive that I was able to tag along for, hand feeding wild lemon sharks at Aye's spot, a vertical longline in the Gulf Stream, and a chaotic chasedown that led to easily the most incredible, albeit somewhat unfortunate, natural event i've ever experienced...

As with the last course, we caught two sharks on the vertical longline.  This time, instead of two tigers, we caught a 270 cm tiger and a 230 cm Cuban Night Shark.  The Cuban was first and, while while the students decided to remain on the pontoon boat, all the volunteers practically jumped off the boat to see the new shark specie.  After a quick workup, we released the shark and Kristine swam it down a few meters to get it moving.  The tiger was hooked on the last line and everyone got in the water to watch the workup and take pictures.  At this point, unbeknownst to all but a few of the volunteers and staff in the water, a large free-swimming tiger was circling about 60 feet below by the cinder block and chum bag at the end of the line.  I dove down to about thirty feet and watched it swim around for a bit before it disappeared into the blue.  Then, only about five minutes later, I saw what I thought to be the tiger reappearing and swimming towards me, only to realize that it was a large new shark, and that it was swimming towards me.  Had it been the tiger I probably would've simultaneously swallowed my snorkel and shit it out my board-shorts.  However, it wasn't a tiger and it stayed about twenty feet away from me as it circled behind me and continued past and disappeared.  When I got back to the lab I did a little research, and I'm about 90% sure it was a large Silky shark drawn in by the bait and chum still on the line.  I didn't get a picture of the mystery shark, however I did get it on video so I do have proof.

Alright, it's late and i'm too tired to describe what happened on the chasedown.  I didn't intend to leave it as a cliffhanger, but, like Stallone, just hang on and it'll be worth it...