CSULB Shark Lab Fundraiser
The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum hosted a fundraiser for the California State University at Long Beach (CSULB) Shark Lab titled, A Great Night of Great Whites, on Saturday, June 17. The twenty-dollar donation yielded a sold-out house of ocean enthusiasts from university researchers, students, surfers, photographers, museum members, and town luminaries like Hiroko Benko and animal advocate Ann Smith.
Proceeds from the event will benefit continued research of great white sharks along the California coast and assist in funding the repair and replacement of scientific equipment damaged and lost during the January ‘23 storms. Prior to the event program, I talked briefly with Shark Lab Director and marine biology professor Dr. Chris Lowe. I asked about the loss of gear and its impact on the lab. He replied, “Yes, it is serious. The first two weeks of January storms took out all of our research gear, which we have in the Pacific Ocean along the coast from Monterey to San Diego, specifically our transmitters, receivers, and specialized buoys. While used for research, this gear also helps the lifeguards who protect the beachgoers and report to the local governances with shark sightings and beach closures, so research and public safety are at issue. We hope to raise $100,000 to replace and repair the gear as soon as possible.”
The lab’s display of gear at the event included an Oceanserver Iver 3 with Xylem/YSI sonde suite and InnovaSea digital acoustic receiver integrated, VR2TX Acoustic Receivers, acoustic fish tags, shark teeth and fins, an array of unmanned aerial vehicles with fully equipped audio/visual cameras and transmitters, and a wide professional variety of telemetry gear. And of course, printed copies of their “Shark Comic Book series,” which one can download online for free.
The program was moderated by Harry Rabin, oceanic documentary filmmaker and researcher. Lowe presented all about the Shark Lab, which is over 50 years old and world renowned for its research and documentation on sharks. While it has been featured on TV and in documentaries, he is more excited about the many in-roads being made by his lab and grad students documenting shark behavior, eating habitats, populations, migration, coastal locations, shark traffic, and the mingling of sharks with humans, “that goes on more than people realize and without incident.” He also presented the lab’s multi-level educational services from K-12 and for the public at large, along with the co-lab with a psychologist to research people’s views of sharks to map out future educational programming. He discussed key rationale why great white juveniles have been increasingly noted close to the shorelines: Sharks prefer warm water found by the shore, newborn sharks are left on their own by their parents and feel safer closer to the shore, and it is easier to find food like seals and stingrays. Lowe outlined the gear lost and what it does, such as the buoys with transmitters that detect the location of sharks and send messages to the closest lifeguards to alert them. An impressive research study being conducted will provide information through sonic information on if sharks behave differently with surfers, kayakers, paddle boarders, and swimmers.
Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Ryan Logan presented data on the densest populations of great whites, which are found at Padaro Beach and beaches in San Diego, consistently since 2020 [see photo].
Also presenting was Carlos Gauna, who prior to the pandemic was a wedding photographer. In 2020, he used a drone to film gray whales when he happened to get footage of great white sharks, and since, has devoted his time to filming the sharks for behavioral studies and data support to scientists globally, available on an open source. He showed his latest video depicting his experience with the Shark Lab grads tagging a shark, providing first-hand views of this process. It will be available on his YouTube channel.
Lucky raffle winners and auction winners received an opportunity to join the Shark Lab research team as volunteer observers during a great white shark tagging mission.
Reef Guardians helped sponsor the event.
To make a donation, click on the QR code in the photo!
411: The mission of the Shark Lab is to study the physiological and behavioral ecology of marine animals, emphasizing the effect of human activity on the ocean; to utilize and develop innovative technology to answer challenging questions important for the conservation and restoration of depleted populations; and to train the next generation of marine biologists.
www.csulb.edu/shark-lab
Instagram: @csulbsharklab
www.youtube.com/themalibuartist
