Program areas at Shark Research Institute
Whale Shark Research: to determine global movements of whale sharks, visual id tags and satellite tags were deployed on whale sharks in the caribbean sea, indian ocean and pacific ocean. Scientific papers on dna studies of whale sharks and satellite telemetry were submitted to scientific journals. Dna studies continued. Visual id tags and satellite tags were utilized to track whale sharks in the indian ocean and radio telemetry was used to track scalloped hammerhead sharks in the pacific ocean.
Global Shark attack file: the gsaf is maintained to provide accurate information to physicians, medical personnel, the media and beach authorities. We provided onsite investigators for incidents that took place in australia, bahamas, south africa, and the usa. Case reports of incidents that took place in australia, bahamas, brazil, comoros, costa rica, cuba, egypt, japan, libya, malaysia, mauritius, new zealand, the philippines, reunion island, samoa, solomon islands, spain, st. helena, uk and the usa were posted on the gsaf spreadsheet, which contains reports of more than 6,300 incidents from 725 b.c. To the present.
Education: continuing to work with educators in the us, uk, honduras, india, mexico and tanzania, and provided them with teaching materials. The whale Shark adoption program is included in this category. The training program for sport divers who wish to assist with Research was expanded to include training on the use of new technology. Educational seminars were presented in costa rica, djibouti, two locations in mexico and at seminars / trade shows in the usa. Still photographs and video footage were provided to the media.
Conservation: provided scientific data to the tanzanian authorities in support of protection for whale sharks in their waters. Continued the informational campaign to alert restaurants and their customers about the high mercury levels in Shark fin soup, and the health risks that it presents. Sought support of member countries of cites for listing on cites appendices.