Shark researcher group Ocearch is pleased with the opening of their 2020 expedition, having caught and sampled one great white and had another get away, although strong winds off Cape Breton Island have complicated the first few days.
Chris Fischer, expedition leader and founder of the U.S.-based non-profit, said they named the first shark of this Nova Scotia expedition Breton.
“We've captured and sampled one beautiful, mature male white shark, and we've only been, like I said, trying to capture sharks now for two-and-a-half days, so we're real pleased,” Fischer said from aboard the research vessel M/V Ocearch in a telephone interview on Monday.
Ocearch uses a converted crab trawler as a home vessel while smaller boats deploy baited lines seeking to capture the huge predators, take them back to the main ship, take various samples for scientific study from them and release them with tracking technology to further collect data on their movements.
Breton measured about four metres in length and weighed more than 635 kilograms.
“We've only (just) been able to start working on the water, where we're trying to capture and sample white sharks, and the first day we captured Breton,” Fischer said. “And then (Sunday), we had another shark pick up a bait and drop it.”
He added that Breton “swam away strong, so it was kind of a best-case scenario,” after being released.
The ship has a platform that can be lowered into the water off one side. Captured sharks are guided into the platform and then it is raised to bring them out of the water for a short period of time while measurements and samples are taken. Sea water is pumped through their mouths over their gills while they are out of the water, and they are returned as quickly as possible.
Breton was captured at Scaterie Island, the same place where Ocearch caught and tagged several sharks last fall in the first stop of their second expedition to Nova Scotia.
The first trip to our waters was in October of 2018, when they sampled and tagged six sharks off West Ironbound Island near the mouth of the LaHave River. They returned to West Ironbound last fall and had more success. In all, 11 sharks were tagged during the 2019 expedition. They hope to repeat that success again this year.
But first, they're going to try to find a couple of new spots. On Monday, they were off Flint Island, east of Donkin. There, they've been fighting the wind, Fischer said.
“We've been getting blown around a little bit by the wind here today, so we're out here trying to work on the water but we're going to probably going to have to pick and move here back down toward Scaterie here as the wind clocks around out of the north,” he said.
“We're just kind of constantly dancing with the wind and trying to find a good, safe spot to work, so there's a lot of shuffling around.”
Ocearch maintains an engaged social media presence for the sharks, inspiring fans to follow them online. The public can also follow the sharks' movements through their website, which posts data from the satellite tracking-enabled technology that they attach to the sharks' dorsal fins. The tags give location data when the fins break the ocean surface long enough to make a connection.
Normally, the group also does community outreach with port visits, educational activities, and taking guests aboard the ship, but those are banned this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“We're thrilled that people are engaging on the social platforms and watching in real time,” Fischer said.” And we're just going to be out here working from dawn to dark until it's over. And then we'll just see how it goes.”
