Some recommendations to help engage local stakeholders in the significance of tagging research include
- (1) use of informative posters or flyers;
- (2) meetings with stake holders ahead of time;
- (3) involving members of the public in the research (i.e. citizen science) or inviting them to observe the tagging activities;
- (4) providing public talks (e.g. schools, clubs and museums);
- (5) working closely with stakeholders (such as hiring guides or tourism operators to help with research)
- (6) use of traditional mass media (print, radio and television)
- (7) publishing tagging results in peer-reviewed journals in a timely fashion
- (8) use of online materials such as websites, short videos, teaching via social media and even online platforms that allow the public to follow the movements of the tagged animals; and
- (9) keeping the public updated on results.
While this discourse has mostly focused on stakeholder attitudes as well as user consideration and responsibilities, manufacturers have an important role to play in improving tag function and animal welfare.
While there is certainly considerable manufacturer effort to improve tag performance (battery life, transmission rate and size), there needs to be a greater focus on engineering instruments that eventually detach from animals, especially if a large proportion of tags inevitably become functionally impaired. The software does exist for some tags (mostly satellite tags) to determine their functionality (e.g. battery life/power level or light level that could determine biofouling) which could trigger release mechanisms of external tags. Tools could be further developed or studies designed in a way that tagged animals are recaptured at the end of a study.
The state government is now considering installing shark nets on a number of metropolitan beaches as well as others in the South West and further up the coast north of Perth.
According to a review of the Dunsborough Beach Enclosure Trial compiled by the state government, no by-catch was recorded as part of the net trialled in Dunsborough.
A spokeswoman for the Premier told Fairfax Media that while the net announced on Friday was not the same type of net used in Queensland and New South Wales, it was made up of a mesh type netting. The state government's review said the planned net for Busselton would be more of a "beach enclosure" deployed to create "an impenetrable barrier to sharks".
Well fisherman , another great living giant that you have killed for what ?
I am a great lover of sharks and seeing this makes me sick , serious think of how old is this shark , how many more sharks are we going to kill and tell me what are you going to do with this shark now , seriously your f….d up
You guys make me sick
Franck
Clean bite refers to quote a minor injury relatively speaking and anyone who knows me in person knows I am barely 5foot3 and any injury does look mammoth.Meaning that the picture is legit, but that the injury looks bigger than it is.
A picture was used that I posted to Instagram with no caption and no explanation.The caption and explanation being...?
Pictures of alleged injuries vary site to site and may have not been vetted by Elissa.No they don't vary. There is only one. So, has it been vetted, or not?
The Heroes and heroines, warriors, whisperers, experts, specialists and whatnot are all legit if the moniker is being assigned by others - but when it is self promotion and really nothing more than branding, it becomes irritating.
Does sharktivism really need its own version of the Kardashians and the associated frothy adulation and gossip? Maybe – but like in real life, I don’t like it one bit!
I don't seek out the spotlight like a number of other scientistsHahahahahaha
the take home message for today is that the old eco-tactic of fabricating events to boost your cause is no longer viable
It's all very well rounding on Elissa, getting the pitchforks and flaming torches out but maybe we might want to start looking at the more uncomfortable truths, that the people looked upon as bastions of Shark Conservation because they ride sharks ("for the sharks"), wear bikinis ("for the sharks"), make crappy TV ("for the sharks"), get you to donate your hard earned money to their projects which don't actually do anything ("for the sharks") or simply spend all their time on Facebook telling you how brilliant they are ("for the sharks") aren't actually doing it "for the sharks," at all but instead, are doing it solely for themselves and that these narcissists are merely creating more narcissists who do nothing other than push their brand at people who believe they are helping by supporting them in doing so?PPPPS: Christine Haines
Last summer I joined the nosharkcull movement because I was appalled that sharks were being killed and maligned for being sharks.P5S: Have you seen this?
Over the course of the trial I learned alot about the politics in environmental groups. And it's not nice. I was shocked to find that these groups were just as hypocritical as the wrongs they were fighting. They used misinformation, sex, phsychic connections and other questionable practises with as much abandon as the wrong they were fighting. I was sure that the tactics used by some people and groups were not right. I have unliked and unfollowed some organisations because I think that while the cause is right the methods were wrong and only served to reinforce the stereotype of the cosmic, tree hugging, hippie type of activist that would stop at nothing (including deliberate false and misleading information). I want a group whose ideals agree with mine and who deals in scientific fact. My illusions were shattered but at least I'm wiser.
The 26-year-old from Burleigh Heads said she felt “privileged” to be attacked...
The activist, who has been on several free-diving expeditions in South Africa to protect great whites, said..
Like if I were to put the Megalodon show on air, honestly Nat Geo Wild would get crickets, like I couldn't… my audience doesn't expect that from us...
So right now, what we're doing with Shark Fest – I'm shamelessly letting Discovery do all the work for me. They've chummed the waters. They've brought in a huge number of people, by the way, most of whom don't give a hoot about natural history at all, or about animals in that sense. But they're pulling a big group of people and look, I'm running right under them with a very sort of tongue in cheek marketing campaign that is actually taking a poke at them...
And when people come and they go oh, it's a shark, and then they stick on our network… we're starting to see people who are really appreciative of the difference [between Shark Fest and Shark Week] and are noticing that difference more and more. And they're saying "oh wow, they're not megalodon-ing me, they're actually giving me the real story behind those amazing animals in a way that just feels different to me."...
But the most important thing, sort of bringing it full circle, is we have to be true.
And I think that that takes a lot of courage, it takes a lot of vision and leadership to be willing to have the courage of your convictions and to stand in there while everybody is running one way to say, "this may not be the quickest path to success, but I'm certain that if we stay there that we will create this loyal core of viewers and online followers that will start to evangelize for the network and start to tell their friends and start to tell their families, and that over time will grow."
And so I actually think that the path to positive activism is through emotional engagement. And I think that you can't do that by putting on heavy hitting, dire, guilt-ridden awfulness, because people see that every night on the news.
For me, the mission is about making people fall in love, to fall in love with that animal, to fall in love with that place. And then giving them the outlets and the opportunity to then, in their own way and in their own time, come into the tent and be inspired, to engage on deeper and deeper levels, whatever that level is. Because at the end of the day, I don't need everybody to become fire breathing activists.
The EPA’s report to the Minister for Environment is now open for a two-week public appeal period. Appeals close September 25, 2014 and can be made at www.appealsconvenor.wa.gov.au
Appeals are administered independently of the EPA by the Appeals Convenor and determined by the Minister for Environment. This proposal is also being assessed under a bilateral agreement with the Commonwealth. This means both State and Federal Ministers for the Environment will make a decision under their respective legislations. Both Ministers will need to give approval for the proposal to proceed.
Although the vulnerability of tropical sharks to climate change is species-specific, factors such as temperature, sea level rise and freshwater input are assumed to elicit the greatest effects upon estuarine, coastal inshore and reef species. Such effects are likely to be expressed through changes in species abundance and distribution (e.g. poleward movements and migrations to deeper waters).
Until now, ocean acidification was not considered as a primary climate-related threat to elasmobranchs; only indirectly through habitat and community changes (e.g. reef sharks).
Experimental approaches such as those shown in the present study are critical to directly assess risk and vulnerability of sharks to ocean acidification and warming, and can ultimately help managers and policy-makers to take proactive measures targeting most endangered species.
After 20 years diving, 10 of them at Cocos Island; she gave me the most incredible experience so far at sea. We were witness of how 6 killer whales hunted, killed and fed on a tiger shark. just unreal experience!!! I just filled my tank for 20 more years ;)
I believe there will be some culling, some time in the future there will be culling of sharks, because we will have other shark attacks.
