Is Junior back in Town?

Howz Junior gonna look: still like this?
...or again like this?

Quite possibly!
The sat tag got connectivity issues but according to Michael Domeier, the Sea Surface Temperatures indicate that two years after the foul hooking and one year after the re-sighting and a second loop through the SOFA, the literally and figuratively much abused Junior may indeed be back in central California!
Not bad for a Shark suffering from a, what was it again, compromised caloric equation - and yes, I’ve re-read the various threads and lemme tell ’ya, it has been painful!

Will he be re-sighted?
Maybe even by the same Scot Anderson and Sal Jorgensen from the TOPP labs who filmed him the last time and whose video was then shared? And if so, will they and/or Stanford and Monterey Bay Aquarium and/or the GFNMS share any ensuing evidence, and this regardless of its nature?
Or may he be spotted by one of the two operators in the Farallones?

And what about the, and I cite
ruptured and infected tumorous trauma that is necrotizing the musculature of the upper right (starboard) mandibular/palatal quadrate, this according to the undoubtedly infallible verdict by somebody who has a fair bit (no pun) of experience regarding both white shark predation and scarification and markings diagnostics and predatory forensics?
Has the injury tumorized and necrotized further - or may it now look like any other painfully trivial healed Shark bite on a painfully trivial healthy looking Great White?

Bruce before and after

And, may we be headed straight towards a new round of accusations, name-calling and ad hominem attacks, first against Domeier and the methods he uses to tag sharks, and (then) between commenters?

Questions questions! :)

Junior - the Video!

FACE IT! - Fabulous pic by Marty (yes this is a link!).

Bingo!

David has finally obtained the video.
Here it is.



As I said, I'm done with this.
The video fully confirms my suspicions that this has been an ignominious smear campaign against Michael Domeier.
It also very much confirms my opinion about the many self congratulatory so-called Shark experts who saw it fit to engage in gratuitous pseudo-scientific pseudo-forensic speculation, sniping and finger pointing in the comments section of David's first post. Remember their names as they will undoubtedly be completely unfazed and continue to rant, speculate and bloviate about other Shark related matters, this with equally zero knowledge let alone credibility.

I'm not gonna repeat my final take on this fiasco.
I fully stand by what I wrote there, including the need for holding the perpetrators, enablers and accomplices accountable. But fear not, Greg Barron is already very much starting to ask the right questions.

Just this.
Congratulations to Michael Domeier who finds himself fully vindicated in the matter of whether he caused permanent damage to the Shark.
Huge kudos to David for having doggedly persevered in this matter.

Comments policy.
This is David's blog post, and I invite everybody to post their comments there and not here. Comments parroting what has already been posted on the various Junior threads here or on Southern Fried Science will be deleted.

PS excellent op ed by Patric here.
Totally agree, albeit with one small exception: if the right people stay on the ball, there can be positive consequences. The various people who played a role in this need to be held accountable and if necessary, removed. Also, I continue to maintain that present tagging procedures (by close to all researchers everywhere) are generally too invasive and that the gizmos can, and need to be fixed. I know that changes are already being implemented - and if this utter fiasco has helped trigger some reflection and a new trend, then it will ultimately result in a positive outcome both for the animals and for the researchers studying them.
Fingers crossed!

Junior - final Chirp!

Junior with the tag, as posted on Domeier's website. See any damage to the jaw?

Did you understand this comment?

I'm not a native English speaker and did not. Apparently, it means no one is listening and by implication no one wants to hear it. It’s a sound gag used when a comedian tells a joke that falls flat and not a sound is to be heard from the audience.
Fair enough.

So there, let's put this baby to rest.
Three independent sources have told me the following.

• The video(s) were shot by two researchers sometime between September and the end of November, 2010. I know their names but have no proof that they are the authors of the smear campaign, so the names will remain unmentioned.
• They work for TOPP under the formidable Barbara Block. This has happened on her watch and it is her job to get to the bottom of what really went down within the organization she heads.
• There was a GFNMS observer
• The research has been paid for by, and the video(s) are the property of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford.
• A copy of the video(s) was given to the GFNMS.

What then obviously happened is this.
Somebody grabbed some stills off those videos. That person was then able to peruse archives with older images of Junior and produced the before-and-after pictures that were then leaked. That is not the spontaneous action of a Shark activist who stumbled upon the information - that takes a lot of time and effort and is something only an insider could have achieved.

And who is it that leaked the pictures?
From the e-mail I received.
I’m a shark enthusiast...
After inquiring with some students that study white sharks, I became aware that this same shark was re-sighted and identified with video almost a year after it was tagged. According to my friend some of the images were submitted to the sanctuary during the public comment period for the tagging permit renewal...
My concern is that other scientists or media hounds will try to do this again, heck, who knows how many of these sharks have already been severely impaired as a result of this same researcher’s made for TV science. Since the latest information suggests that there are less than 300 individuals in this area, I am very upset over the lack of oversight these researchers have when working with these magnificent creatures. If we can’t protect these sharks inside of a sanctuary, then we are no better than the commercial interests that we routinely blame for the shark decline.
I’ve included the images that I was sent, showing the shark before and after the horrible incident.
Genuine? My intuition tells me, it is.

Big picture?
This is a smear campaign against Michael Domeier.

Forget the opinion of the inevitable expert bloviators.
Half of what they assert is just speculative BS that has been completely debunked by several pictures that show that Junior had no abrasions, nor dislocated jaws whatsoever after having been hauled aboard. And what about the general bad condition of the animal: do you really believe that it is the consequence of the brutal treatment it suffered one year earlier (!), due to some obscure reduced caloric equation and the like? C’mon…
How about invoking the much abused Occam. Is it not much more plausible that a Shark with two big bites on his back and a further nasty bite on his mouth (just to keep with Domeier's explanation - there could be heaps of others) would be in bad shape, at least temporarily? Plus, keep in mind that the tracks indicate that Junior is still migrating normally, and this 18 months after the accident!

Also, Domeier’s research is by no means redundant as some are asserting.
Yes in their present configuration, those SPOT tags are way too invasive and I also think that the procedures are way too brutal. I commend Domeier for having exhaustively documented what led him to choose those specific protocols here, but I still strongly differ with his conclusions that the research ought to continue basically unchanged. I say, the gizmos need total re-engineering and the procedures need to drastically change before any further deployment.
Still, this does not disqualify the study per se, only the methods. It would be great if the researchers would dispose of precise multi-year tracks enabling them to shed light on the life history of those GWs, especially when it comes to their breeding cycle and mating and pupping grounds. Telemetry will obviously not answer all questions, but it would give valuable pointers about where to start investigating with other means.

I say, with the exception of the damage caused by the tag, there is not one single shred of proof here.
The only possible evidence is the video – and is it not revealing how it never surfaced, and how none of Domeier’s detractors are asking that it be produced?
Anyway, my call is that Domeier has nothing whatsoever to do with those injuries and that this is a well orchestrated ignominious campaign aimed at rubbishing him. I’ve said it before, despite of the techniques he has employed where I continue to be highly critical, he is a brilliant researcher and does not deserve this.

Which brings me straight back to the TOPP labs and the role they have played in this latest fiasco. All the leads converge there.
The videos were shot by them, in fact, those two guys saw the Shark and know whether it had other shark bites - which means that if Domeier's explanation is correct, the "evidence" is fabricated! Somebody was then given access to that video and even more telling, to archives of further images of GWs from the Farallones. The person who leaked the pictures speaks of students that study white sharks and of images that I was sent. What I find particularly disturbing is that those researchers have not only possibly fabricated the evidence and not posted the video that could exonerate Domeier, but that they continue to snipe from the safety of anonymity on top of it – or how are we to interpret A source close to the photographers who saw Junior last October!
I say, this is underhanded, unprofessional and cowardly, and in total breach of basic ethical tenets and collegiality. Disgusting.
Barbara Block as the person in charge sure has a lot to answer for.

This is happening on the money of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford and I must also say that I’m starting to be concerned about their oh so politically correct silence. Like it or not, they are parties to this - how long can this continue without an unmistakable statement from their side before they do become accomplices!

Sean Van Sommeran?
In a twisted way, I must say that I’m rather impressed by his passionate stance and his total lack of political correctness. Normally, donors don't like controversy and having been intrigued by how he could afford to speak up like he does, I went snooping for his sponsors: talk about an eclectic and anarchic combo with among others, Sea Shepherd - and a gun training outfit! If that doesn’t say it all - and being a combat shooter myself, I can confirm that we always shoot to kill! :)
Anyway, yes the ramblings, self promotion, innuendos and outright insults are at times terribly irritating - but he's sure got chops and his latest exchanges with Greg Barron on SFS (bottom of thread) and on Alastair Bland’s second article reveal the whole extent of the shenanigans, from heaps of history, infighting, food fights, territoriality and xenophobia to his utter frustration with the authorities who are seemingly totally failing to do their job.
Very interesting and very revealing indeed!

Indeed, the GFNMS role in this has been highly questionable to say the least.
Read the Barron/Sommeran exchanges and you can clearly discern the extent of the rot, from the anti-public and anti-industry agendas to the favoring of certain groups at the expense of others, and how in this specific case, they spectacularly failed to discern the basic fact that a fishing show and experimental and highly invasive research had simply no place in a marine sanctuary. Plus, what’s that about the excuse that images and video footage of the injured shark were received too late - what was the purpose of the observer if not observe and report?
This has happened on the watch of the current boss, Maria Brown. It is she who ultimately bears the responsibility for it.

There you have it.
I’m done with this, the more as I’ve noticed that Greg Barron, a local with plenty of insight who is obviously both principled and objective has decided to look into it – bottom of this thread. Much much better this way.
I sure wish him not to get some nasty infection by wading into this toxic quagmire!

Long story short?
I have been asked to post "evidence" that Domeier has caused permanent damage to Junior - meaning that the emaciated status and injury on the mouth were alleged to be the direct consequence of the brutal treatment the Shark had been subjected to one year earlier.
Having looked, I now believe that the evidence is fabricated, and that this is a smear campaign against Michael Domeier that has been orchestrated by circles associated with the TOPP labs - but as always, I shall be happy to be proven (!) wrong!

Over & out!

PS - excellent article here - kudos!

PPS - as of December, 2013, it has been revealed that the trolling Mr. van Sommeran is one of the perpetrators of this scam.

Junior - the Narrative is changing!

Another pic of Junior on the boat - see any evidence of a permanently dislocated jaw?

Well well.

I've given an interview and here is the article.
Once I told them about the interview, some people have warned me not to trust Alastair Bland and predicted that he might make me look like a crazy person. Well, he has not - or has he? :)
Just two minor corrections: we do not employ cages, and I said the specific procedures were brutal, not SPOT tagging in general. The tags are invasive and I shall post about that at a later stage.

This is a follow up to his first article in the Bohemian and I must commend Alastair for not having blindly accepted the prima facie evidence but continued to investigate instead.
This, I think, is much more balanced.

So, where is that video.
Anonymous posting to Vimeo (better quality than YouTube) with a few comments will suffice. Again, this is not gonna just simply go away - I still intend to post a final wrap-up and post mortem. What I will say then will largely depend on developments in the next couple of days.

PS you may also want to go and read Andrew the Southern Fried Scientist's comment on the spectacular thread there. It's towards the bottom, with a yellow background. Although I don't agree with all he says (yes individuals may not count for much, but how we treat them does), this is as good as it gets.
Kudos.

Junior - follow up!

The silence after my last post about Junior has been deafening.

But fear not.
I've been around for a long time and know alot of people.
I've started to do some digging and lemme tell you, the terrain has quickly become treacherous! I never intended to ever wade back into the arcane politics of GW research and conservation in California, the more as I don't understand (does anybody?) half of what's going on there - but I am persevering because I'm starting to get pissed off and am thus highly motivated.

Did I hear, what's the agenda?
To shed light on what increasingly appears to be a smear campaign against Michael Domeier.
Period. I don't personally know any of the actors and have no vested interests there whatsoever. But having been dragged into it and having publicly asked questions, I now want to get answers.

So there.
What I'm starting to discern, is a faint buzz of vague innuendos and speculation: but if one weeds out the most preposterous allegations (= this is viral marketing for Sharkmen2 instigated by MD and Nat Geo) and aggregates the most plausible bits and pieces, the picture that is starting to emerge is this.

I hear about nasty politics. I hear that the research community was once highly fractured and the scene of fierce internecine warfare. I hear that a big 500lb gorilla wielding a big schtick in the form of lavish research grants and with a determined (some say nasty) disposition managed to browbeat everybody into submission, pacified the various factions and created an uneasy alliance of researchers. I hear that for quite a while, there has been a small group of researchers, advisers and bureaucrats overseeing that place and making a living of it. A little incestuous it seems. A bit of conflict of interest too perhaps? I hear that for years, that group has been trying to get everyone else, and I do mean everyone including the general public, excluded from the islands, see the above link. I sense that as a consequence, everybody with any connection to that place is highly concerned about possible retribution and accordingly paranoiac about not wanting to get involved.
I hear that Domeier is an outsider who had the audacity to intrude. I hear that he was told to back off, or else. I hear that there is history, including anecdotes about tagged Guadalupe GWs traveling on the coastal highway all the way to Sta Cruz – hilarious, you really can’t make these things up. I get messages predicting that they will cannibalize him in an orgy of scientific frothiness that would put even the best 1930's piranha movie to shame. It's how academia rolls. If you thought internecine fighting between operators was bad, you ain't seen nuthin' until you have seen a knife fight between two scientists. Nice.
Get the gist?

Is this PROOF?
Hell, no! Much is anecdotal and circumstantial - it is merely a plausible backdrop that may however help frame the issue at hand.

Names?
Not quite yet - but I know about that research and having Googled Great White Sharks Philopatry, I've come up with a possible lineup of characters.
Interesting.

Open questions.

• There is a video: who has taken it, who owns it, who has copies
• Does the video clearly prove that the wound on Junior's head is a Shark bite. Release the video - regardless of whether it’s a yes or a no.
• Who did grab those stills and leak them, and why
• Did anybody sanction the leak
  

This ain't going away - and that's a promise.
At stake, the reputation of Michael Domeier.
But equally at stake, the reputation of some researchers, that of the people and institutions they work for and who fund their research, that of the GFNMS.

Whoever is behind this - it's time for some reflection and soul searching.

I shall be writing one more post in this matter after this.
After that, we can then hopefully concentrate on the real issue at hand, i.e. the tagging of Sharks.

Junior - smell Test!

For those who are still engaging in idle speculation - this is Junior after hooking. No lesions whatsoever.

Talking about accountability.
I was about to write an elaborate post but this will suffice.
From my correspondence with a friend who asked why I had "changed my mind" about Michael Domeier's research, marginally abridged.

No my views on invasive research have not changed and I shall be posting about them soon.
The SPOT tags are an abomination, permanent bling that cripples the animals and they need to be totally re-engineered. The argument of individuals vs population etc are rather disgusting as well. And I’m totally against invasive research and ad hoc experimenting on endangered species in a marine reserve, and condemn the authorities for having enabled it.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here.
I fully believe MD's well supported arguments that the video, if watched in its entirety, will prove that the wound on the head is a shark bite. And yet, somebody sent the video grabs purporting those were tumors/lesions attributable to MD's research. The people who shot the video are competing researchers who also sent the full video to the park authorities, where MD was able to review it.

What are the chances that those competing researchers did not know it was a shark bite.
Why did they then make those allegations, why did they not mention that the shark had further shark bites aft of the head.

Lemme tell u why: Domeier has had the audacity to intrude on s’body else’s turf, an this with NAT GEO (!) - and this is the backlash.
Timing is interesting. They sat on it for 4 months but now that Sharkmen2 is imminent and the research permits are being evaluated, here comes the “public outcry”.

Domeier is being framed and I shall not be an accessory to that.
Despite of all my reservations against the techniques he employs and the ethical framework justifying that, he is a brilliant researcher doing important stuff where I say ”yes great - but you must radically fix the gizmos and change your protocols before proceeding further”. Nothing less, nothing more.
He does not deserve this, the more as I’m convinced that he got nothing whatsoever to do with the injuries.

The emaciated state of Junior: no idea.
There are plausible hypotheses out there but they are untestable – and as a lawyer and also as a scientific mind, I cannot engage in gratuitous speculation at the expense of somebody’s excellent scientific credentials and track record.

Does it explain my stance?

To put things into perspective for first-time readers.
I received an e-mail about the terrible state of a GW that had been tagged by Michael Domeier and wrote this post. I then followed up on the particular thread about the injuries to Junior's head (there are other threads but they have no bearing on this specific topic) with this.
In it, I stated that it was incumbent upon the people who unleashed the controversy by leaking the pictures to make the video available for verification. To date, this has not happened, at least not publicly.

David aka WhySharksMatter has since weighed in here.
This has generated a fabulous thread (61 comments, and counting!) where many passionate and intelligent people have contributed to the debate. One of them is thankfully Michael Domeier himself who has inter alia posted this (the comment has a yellow background and you need to scroll way down).

If I could post the video I would, but I don’t have a copy.
When/if it become public everyone will see two huge shark bites dorsal of the gill region. Furthermore, the corner of the mouth has been peeled back like the lid of a can; the “tumor” is a bulge of tissue that has been peeled off the corner of the mouth. The portion of the hook we left in the fish was posterior to the gills…literally feet aft of the new wound. The wound is probably only 1-2 weeks old.

This is unequivocal and highly plausible.

So lemme tell you this.
I have a big nose and after years of survival in the investment banking jungle, it has become very finely attuned to smelling out shenanigans - and right now, my nose is telling me, something stinks.

I repeat: where is the video from which the pictures were taken and circulated.
As I commented on David's post,
I remain highly concerned about the lack of response by the GFNMS. I remain equally concerned by the lack of response by the people who have started this debate by sending the original e-mail and pictures. Laying low and hoping that this matter will go away will not work – for both parties!

Whoever started this controversy: time to come out, own up and face the music!

Needless to say that despite of those grave reservations, I will always remain open for evidence (!) that my suspicions are unfounded!

Junior - have I been set up?

We got ourselves a debate!

I must commend Michael Domeier.
After those pictures were published, he did not try and dodge the issue but instead, he has vigorously addressed the various controversies on the website of Marine CSI. It is a toothy piece and I like it. As expected, much of what he writes touches on ethical issues and whereas I agree with some and do not at all agree with some other statements, that is not the topic of this post.

The topic is this.

Recently, another research group working at the Farallones has released images of Junior from the fall of 2010.
These images have been posted on the internet to incite negative publicity about our white shark research. The images clearly show a rather nasty wound on the corner of Junior’s mouth, but what is not explained is that when the entire video is viewed it can be determined that this injury was clearly inflicted by another white shark; it is not a result of the capture and release during tagging.

Very interesting!
My first thought is has somebody tried to set me up? - which in view of the legendary internecine fights in the GW research community is certainly a plausible (and in this specific case, eminently testable!) hypothesis!

Over to the injury.
Prima vista, I remain unconvinced. Those bites by other Sharks are generally "clean" and as Domeier confirms, they heal amazingly fast, this very much in line with what we see on our Bulls here in Fiji; the pictures of Junior however appear to depict a festering inflammation that looks very different. But then again, they are rather fuzzy video grabs and it is entirely possible that they are misleading.

How about some verification then.
Domeier asserts rather confidently that if one watches the entire video, it becomes apparent that Junior's injury is due to a Shark bite. With that in mind, I believe that at this stage, it is incumbent upon the other group to produce that video for independent verification. Either the wound has been clearly inflicted by another white shark, or it has not.
Yes or No - easy!

• will that video be made available?
• who will analyze it?
• what will be the results?
  

Questions, questions...