Eckerd College Course

We typically host 5-7 university courses a year. These courses are affiliated with a university, and they come to the Bimini Shark Lab as part of their field or laboratory component. The courses range in topics from Tropical Marine Biology to Shark Biology. We welcomed our first course of the year March 19th-25th from Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. The Shark Biology course is led by Dr. William Szelistowski, who has been bringing courses to the Shark Lab since 2008 after meeting Doc Gruber at a conference. Before the course got to Bimini, they had been reading a lot of papers from the Shark Lab to prepare themselves. Once they arrived, we took them out to do all the activities that Bimini has to offer. They got to see a great hammerhead, numerous baby lemon sharks, Southern stingrays, Caribbean reef sharks, and 5 other Bimini elasmobranchs, making a grand total of 9! In addition to the field activities, they received many lectures from the Shark Lab’s scientists and staff. Eckerd College will be back for another course in May, and we are so excited to welcome them back.

Film Crews

In addition to disseminating our research through scientific papers, films are a great way to spread our science and message as well. We give film companies the opportunity to come to the lab if they wish to film certain aspects or topics of our science and research. In the past, the Shark Lab and its scientists have been featured on Discovery’s Shark Week, National Geographic’s Sharkfest, BBC documentaries, and many more. There are so many creative options nowadays to show and create a video, and the lab has been able to be a test subject for some of these new innovative ideas. We are so excited to be able to share some of this in the future when it becomes available. Stay tuned!

Cats, Dogs, Sharks, Oh My!

The month of March saw many different animal activities! The Shark Lab participates in multiple vet clinics a year. We partner with Dr. Valentino Grant from Caves Village Veterinary Hospital from Nassau, Bahamas, to help trap feral cats on the island to spay and neuter them. It helps the local community by keeping the wild cat population under control. Below is a short video that goes more in depth about this process.

The Shark Lab also helps foster Bimini dogs before they find their forever homes. This month, we fostered two puppies named “Miles” and “Alice” for a week before they were adopted. They came to us at 10 weeks old, feisty, and full of energy!

Shark Adoptions

The Shark Lab provides the opportunity for anyone that is interested to adopt one of our tagged sharks. Currently, we have the Bronze and Silver level adoptions available. The Bronze level includes a baby lemon shark that you get to name. The Silver level includes any of our larger sharks (besides the great hammerhead shark) that does not have an acoustic or satellite tag. You also have the opportunity to name this shark and choose the species. The species you can choose from are larger lemon sharks, nurse sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, Caribbean reef sharks, and blacktip sharks. To adopt your own shark, follow the link below!

https://www.biminisharklab.com/name-a-shark

We had a jam-packed month, and we are ready for another one next month! See you next month for another update of all things Bimini Shark Lab!