During the holiday season many people travel to visit family and friends that live across the country or even the world. But in the New Year, we must get back to our normal lives: school, work, or whatever one does in their everyday life. Humans are traditionally visual navigators and have developed a variety of tools … Continue reading
Written by Emma Park. Emma is an undergraduate at UNC who spent her winter break working with The Ocean Foundation. Over part of winter break, I traveled to the eastern Caribbean to work with Hello Ocean, a nonprofit that showcases ocean conservation work through a series of online videos. I helped with the production of … Continue reading
Welcome to the second guest post in Larisa Bennett’s series about her semester at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) through the Institute for the Environment Field Site program! Today, Larisa takes us out to sea for a shark research expedition. For more of Larisa’s aquatic adventures, check out her first post! Shark attacks along … Continue reading
This guest post was written by Becky Fitzula. Becky, although an NC State graduate, has fallen into ranks as the Public Communications Technician at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS). She has spent most of her time digging through the archives to discover the rich history surrounding IMS, but on occasion she has been … Continue reading
Once again, it’s Shark Week on Discovery Channel. As a marine scientist I can’t condone the unholy union of fact and fiction which has seemed to characterize this year’s programming (see “Shark of Darkness: Wrath of Submarine” and “Megalodon: The Shark That Lives”), but I can’t deny that sharks are pretty awesome. Despite evidence that a … Continue reading
If you ever played Sharks & Minnows in your middle school pool party days, you’ve mimicked recent research from the University of Hawaii and University of Tokyo: seeing the world from the perspective of a shark. But whereas your swimming pool shark was single-mindedly trying to “catch fish,” it turns out that actual sharks’ schedules … Continue reading
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that the government of Western Australia has decided to pursue a shark cull. The government supported program allows for the killing of sharks in Western Australian waters, including threatened Great Whites. There have been reports of people shooting sharks, but most of the culling will be done be baiting … Continue reading
A study was published on Jan 21, 2014, the 50th anniversary of the IUCN Red List, that found a quarter of shark and ray species are threatened with extinction (more information here). Only 23% of these species are considered “safe” with the IUCN listing of “Least Concern.” You may think of sharks as threats to … Continue reading
Twitter and world media have been abuzz this week about the Taiji Cove dolphin drive. A practice in a small Japanese town that leads to the death or capture of hundreds of dolphins each year. You may have heard of this before if you are a fan of documentaries. “The Cove” is a documentary by … Continue reading
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