Feeding Habits Analysis: Detective Work

As anyone who's ever done a diet study will tell you, you end up getting a lot of unverifiable gunk in your study animal's stomach contents.  Sometimes enough of the consistency remains that you can tell generally what this chunk of meat used to be.  For example, it's pretty easy to tell fish meat from anything else thanks to identifying features like white meat and the pattern of musculature.  However, getting beyond this stage takes a little more work and creativity.

New England Great Whites Return

Here's an incredibly timely news item, given that my last post was a little Carcharodon carcharias humor and I'm watching "Expedition Great White" as I write this.  Last summer five great whites were tagged with satellite tracking tags as they hung out right off the beaches of Cape Cod.  Data coming in from the tags now suggests that at least one of the tagged sharks is on its way back for the summer.  There is anecdotal evidence that great white numbers are increasing off of New England, most likely due to the Cape's burgeoning harbor seal population.

This is great news for the marine ecosystem of New England, and ironically, for some surfers I've spoken to from the area.  I've heard stories of bull harbor seals harassing surfers right out of the water, so some among the Cape Cod surfing community are actually welcoming the return of the sharks.  Hopefully the chambers of commerce in the beachside towns of Cape Cod will be as reasonable.

This is a story I've been following as an amateur for a while.  Even though the main focus of this blog is sharks of a considerably smaller size, as both a salty New Englander and a big fan of sharks in general I get pretty enthusiastic about the return of great whites to the Northeast. 

New House, New Pet?

I'll be moving into a new apartment next month, and I've been wondering whether I want to get a pet to take advantage of the extra space.  Thanks to Rob for bringing this to my attention and helping me with the decision.

From The Onion

Woo! 50th post!

6 months, 50 posts.  Not a bad pace so far.  As the world watches the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico and I prepare for another boat trip out to Cape Lookout (now that we've found the holdover population, the next step is to measure and tag some of them) let's take a moment to enjoy some video of the mighty spiny dogfish.  The first video shows the graceful movement and skittish behavior shown by spiny dogfish interacting with divers.  The second is the dogfish as consummate mesopredator, savaging a baited camera and driving off cod as they attempt to get a piece of the action.  Thanks for reading so far, and stick around for more small shark action. 

The Great Memorial Day Dogfish Hunt

Earlier I posted on a population of spiny dogfish that seem to be hanging out south of Cape Hatteras long after they are supposed to have migrated north.  As of this past weekend stories of spiny dogfish stealing bait and chasing fish continued from the waters between Morehead City and Cape Lookout.  On Monday a team comprised of Dr. Rulifson, Jen, Dan Z, and myself set out to the shallow, sandy waters on the inside of the Cape Lookout hook in search of these hungry stragglers.  Read on to see how the mission went...

DarWIN, not DarLOSE!

I've always thought the comedic talents of both Dana Carvey and Charles Darwin were highly underrated.

Dana Carvey is "DARWIN" - watch more funny videos

Thoughts on North Carolina's Gill Net Issues

It's been a hot topic in this state for a while that gill nets are both important to the commercial fishing industry and highly controversial.  I personally know a couple people involved in this debate, and have been following it with some interest, though I haven't had a chance to really post anything on it until now.  Which is timely, because apparently management decisions have been made.