David Shiffman

ScienceOnline Oceans: The planning wiki is now open, and other important updates.

March 4, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman

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I have a few important updates to share about ScienceOnline Oceans! For those of you who haven’t yet heard, ScienceOnline Oceans is a conference (affiliated with the NC-based ScienceOnline) that will explore how marine scientists and conservationists can use the internet for collaboration, education and outreach. The meeting will take place October 11-13th at the University of Miami (Miami, FL), and will include an expert panel discussion on current ocean conservation issues, a day of conference-style programming, and a day of field trips allowing attendees to explore south Florida’s marine environment. Scientists who want to learn more about collaboration and outreach applications of the internet are welcome, as are science communicators who want to learn more about ocean issues.

1) The Planning Wiki is now online, and will be until April 1st! If you have an idea for a session, now is the time to submit it! For those of you new to the ScienceOnline community, theplanning wiki can be thought of as similar to a traditional conference submission page, but there are three important differences:1) everyone can see what everyone else has submitted, 2) anyone can add to what anyone else has written (including questions, suggestions, etc.), and 3) the person who proposes a session can, but does not have to, actually run that session- you can simply suggest a topic that you’d like to see discussed and ask people to volunteer to run it (and you can also volunteer to help run sessions that others have suggested).

We are offering four kinds of sessions at ScienceOnline Oceans. Skills workshops (taught by a hands-on leader to help people learn a skill), panel discussions (3-4 experts on a topic sharing their expertise, possibly including time for audience questions at the end), directed discussions (led by 1 or 2 discussions leaders, primarily consisting of the audience asking questions of the discussion leaders), and facilitated conversations (unconference-style discussions, essentially discussions between audience members facilitated by 1 or 2 moderators, which can be a follow-up to a panel discussion or directed discussion). Here is the link to the planning wiki.

Breaking News! “Most Comprehensive Estimate of Mortality”: Between 63 and 273 Million Sharks Killed Each Year

March 1, 2013March 1, 2013 David Shiffman 10 Comments

Conservation, Science

A new study* has estimated that the total number of sharks killed by fisheries each year is between 63 and 273 million, with a average of approximately 100 million.In an interview, lead author Dr. Boris Worm explains the importance of this estimate:

“This is by far the most comprehensive estimate of shark mortality yet,” he said, “because we consider all sources of mortality, from direct fishing, finning, and discard mortality. the estimate was derived by crunching numbers from almost 100 publications on the catches and mortality of sharks.”

Of all the numbers this team crunched, the most important thing to consider is whether the exploitation rate is greater than the rebound rate. In other words, is this level of exploitation more than the populations can recover from? Though many estimates and approximations went into calculating these figures, it seems quite clear that sharks are being harvested at an unsustainable rate.

How to make a completely useless online environmental petition in 5 easy steps

February 26, 2013 David Shiffman 21 Comments

Conservation

Sites like Care2 and Causes, for better or for worse, make it easier than ever to write and distribute petitions — Sites like Care2 and Causes, for better or for worse, make it easier than ever to write petitions

Online petitions have become a popular tool of the conservation movement. A well-written petition can be an important tool for helping to shape policy, particularly when used as part of a larger and well-organized lobbying and advocacy campaign. Many petitions, however, are so badly written as to be ineffective or even counterproductive when it comes to influencing real policy change. Even worse, they falsely perpetuate the idea that an activist has “done something” about the problem, which may prevent them from participating in a process that could result in real change.

In case you want to join the numerous activists who are filling my Facebook news feed and e-mail inbox with useless petitions, here is an easy 5 step guide for you to to follow, using examples from some real petitions I’ve been asked to sign.

A note on terminology: Petitions typically contain a few basic elements, which I term here “the problem”, “the target”, and “the solution”. The problem briefly describes the undesirable situation that the petition hopes to remedy. The target is who the petition is directed at. The solution is what should be done about the problem.

The most preventable shark attack of all time?

February 19, 2013February 19, 2013 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Science

I don’t often cover shark attacks here at Southern Fried Science. They get plenty of news coverage on their own, they’re usually not that relevant from a science and conservation perspective, and they are outside of my expertise and interests. However, some shark attack stories, such as this one, transcend “if it bleeds, it leads” fearmongering journalism and are interesting in their own right.

I’d like to preface this story by saying that shark attacks are extremely rare to begin with (you have a 1 in 5 chance of dying from heart disease and a 1 in 3.8 million chance of being killed by a shark in the United States). If you want to further minimize your chance of being attacked by a shark, most of the few attacks that occur can be prevented by simply swimming close to shore with lots of other people nearby during the day. Even though shark attacks are rare, I still don’t want to minimize the suffering of the few attack victims and their families. With these caveats out of the way, presented below is the fascinating story of what is probably the most preventable shark attack of all time.

50 Shades of Grey Reef Shark: A Valentine’s Day Special Report on Shark Sex (With Pictures! And Video!)

February 13, 2013February 13, 2013 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Science

As many of our readers prepare for a romantic evening with their special someone (or a Single’s Awareness Day celebration with friends), I invite you to take a few minutes and learn how our toothy friends in the ocean do it. And by “do it”, I mean “do it”. Here are 10 things you might not have known about shark sex.

1) Sharks have external reproductive organs. A male shark has reproductive organs called “claspers” (yes, there are two of them), and females have a “cloaca”. As I regularly tell the high school students who join us for shark research trips, even if you don’t have a degree in marine biology, you’ll quickly recognize what you’re looking at.

A closeup of claspers (male reproductive organs) on a spotted Wobbegong shark. Photo credit: Richard Ling, WikiMedia Commons

Introducing ScienceOnline: Oceans!

February 1, 2013October 27, 2013 David Shiffman 10 Comments

I am thrilled to officially announce Science Online: Oceans, which will take place in Miami this October! ScienceOnline: Oceans is affiliated with the North Carolina based ScienceOnline organization and meeting, and we hope to incorporate much of what makes those meetings so special, but there is one key difference that regular ScienceOnline attendees should be aware of. ScienceOnline: Oceans will focus exclusively on ocean science and conservation (and, of course, how these topics relate to the internet and social media).

Who can attend? Anyone! Any interested scientist, journalist, student, blogger, communicator, activist, or member of the public is welcome. Due to logistical limits, we will have to cap total attendance at 200 (previously it was 150), including organizers, presenters, and attendees. Registration will open in March, stay tuned!

More than 100 marine scientists call for protecting the deep sea from trawling. Will you join us?

January 28, 2013January 28, 2013 David Shiffman 8 Comments

Conservation, Science

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The least-impacted places in the ocean are mainly in the deep sea, but as fishing technology has improved, even seamounts, sponge gardens and deep-sea coral beds are no longer out of reach of our appetites for seafood. Bottom trawling, which involves dragging a heavy weighted net along the seabed, is so destructive to benthic habitats that it has been compared to clear-cutting a forest. Bottom gillnetting catches almost anything that swims into them (and isn’t smaller than the mesh size), resulting in enormous levels of bycatch.

A (simplified) schematic of a bottom trawl. This one (on the NOAA vessel Henry Bigelow) is used for scientific sampling, not fishing, but it's the same principle on a smaller scale. Image via Wikimedia Commons — A (simplified) schematic of a bottom trawl. This one (on the NOAA vessel Henry Bigelow) is used for scientific sampling, not fishing, but it’s the same principle on a smaller scale. Image via Wikimedia Commons

The deep-sea fishing fleet of the European Union is one of the largest in the world, which is why it was so heartening to see the European Commission call for a phase-out of trawls and bottom gillnets recently. The Marine Conservation Institute, a longtime leader in marine protected areas, has obtained over 100 signatures (including mine) from marine scientists supporting a phase-out of bottom trawls and bottom gillnets by the EU fishing fleet. If you are a scientist who supports this measure, please consider adding your signature. This can be done by e-mailing DeepSeaTrawlPetition@Marine-Conservation.org and including your name, institutional affiliation, degree, title, and full mailing address. Please note that MCI is primarily interested in signatures from the scientific community, and that simply posting a comment on this blog post is not equivalent to signing the petition.However, feel free to post a comment letting us know that you contacted MCI!

The full text of the petition can be seen after the jump:

How to tell if a “shark in flooded city streets after a storm” photo is a fake in 5 easy steps

January 23, 2013August 28, 2017 David Shiffman 3 Comments

Popular Culture, Science

The combination of increasing extreme weather and social media has created, if you’ll pardon the pun, a perfect storm for sharing photos that show post-hurricane devastation (both real and fake). Many of them take the form of of a shark swimming through flooded city streets. For better or for worse, I’m known as “the shark guy” among my friends and family, which means that every time one of these pictures pops up, I get it e-mailed to me on the order of 50-100 times.

With the hopes of lightening my inbox and edu-ma-cating our loyal readers, presented below is a simple guide to determine if any given “shark after the storm” photo is fake.

1) Use your vast knowledge of shark biology to determine if a shark that size of that species could possibly be in water that deep.

The image above was one of the first “shark after a storm” pictures to go viral. It claimed to show a great white shark swimming through the flooded streets of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irene in 2011. Take a look at how high the car’s side view mirror is above the water. That means the water level, while more than high enough to be destructive to cars and buildings, is not nearly high enough for a shark of that size to be comfortably swimming in. Also, great white sharks are not typically found in the Caribbean in August.

An interview with Kool Kid Kreyola of “Me and My Shark Fin”

January 14, 2013 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Uncategorized

Last summer, shark conservation got an interesting new voice. Kool Kid Kreyola, a California-based painter and musician, took the ocean twitterverse by storm with “Me and My Shark Fin”. This video, a clever parody of Jay Z and Beyonce’s “Bonnie and Clyde” , told the story of shark fin soup… from the perspective of a shark.

Kreyola agreed to participate in an interview with me. If you have any follow-up questions, please post them in the comments section below, and I’ll make sure that he sees them.

Submit your short ocean-themed movie to the Beneath The Waves Film Festival

January 8, 2013 David Shiffman

The Beneath The Waves Film Festival is accepting submissions for the 2013 event. Now in it’s fourth year, Beneath the Waves encourages dialogue and networking between documentary filmmakers, conservationists, and scientists. As in past years, the film festival is associated with the Benthic Ecology conference, which is taking place March 20th-23rd in Savannah, Georgia. There will … Read More “Submit your short ocean-themed movie to the Beneath The Waves Film Festival” »