SOUTHAMPTON, NY — South Fork shark educators took their knowledge of local waters to the international stage recently: The South Fork History Museum’s, or SOFO’s, shark research and education program was represented at the White Sharks Global Conference held in Port Lincoln, South Australia, in November.
SOFO’s shark research and education program’s lead scientist Dr. Tobey Curtis, and Chief Field Coordinator Greg Metzger made presentations at the 2023 White Sharks Global Conference. The conference, which featured more than 150 participants, marked the first international Great White shark conference in 13 years.
The week consisted of 65 talks and 7 workshop sessions. Both Curtis and Metzger spoke on data from oyoung-of-the-year, or YOY, white shark work on Long Island.
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Curtis spoke about the potential shift in white shark nursery habitat caused by climate change, and how that shift could impact the survivability of individuals, SOFO said. Metzger spoke about the rapid migratory range expansion of the sharks they have tagged over the first five years of their lives, SOFO added.
Frank Quevedo, SOFO executive director, reflected: “We are proud to have SOFO represented on the world stage amongst so many excellent leaders in white shark science. It was exciting that several opportunities emerged for potential collaborations. We are also very proud that of all the YOY white sharks tagged in the world, the SOFO team has tagged roughly half! There was a great deal of interest in our access to this under-studied white shark life stage right here off Long Island.”
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Metzger added: “It was rewarding to see that SOFO’s public messaging regarding shark safety for beachgoers has been accurate and consistent with other regions around the world dealing with similar challenges— such as California, South Africa, and eastern Australia. Overall, we learned a lot from our colleagues that we can apply here in our backyard.”
SOFO said its collaborating research team has been studying sharks off Long Island since 2015 and added that it was the first to satellite tag baby white sharks in the Atlantic Ocean. Local waters in Montauk include the only known nursery area for white sharks in the Atlantic, and “this area is the focus of our scientific efforts. We use cutting-edge technologies to better understand and conserve the sharks found off Long Island, and collect data for scientists and managers up and down the coast,” SOFO said.
In addition to its shark exhibit, SOFO continues to host a variety of shark-themed educational programs, public lectures, and school outreach. Check here for a list of upcoming programs.
SOFO said its one-of-a-kind interactive exhibit brings visitors virtually face-to-face with the important marine predators. Incorporating scientific data directly from its team of collaborating scientists, the interactive exhibit includes a Virtual Shark Tagging Experience, satellite tracking maps, photos from the field, and “all kinds of biological factoids about our local sharks,” SOFO said.
Metzger, a marine biologist, also teaches marine science at Southampton High School and has been shark fishing off the Long Island coast for more than 10 years.
“The 2018 field season found us capturing exciting underwater footage using a 360 camera,” Metzger told Patch in a past interview.
SOFO Museum scientists have put a great deal of emphasis on capturing, tagging, and releasing young-of-the-year individuals to track their movements, as the south shore of Long Island, off Montauk, is home to the only known nursery for juvenile sharks in the North Atlantic Ocean.
There is much to discover about the movements of “great whites” — as they are often called — at this early stage of life, since there is little data on the topic, the museum said.
Despite recent shark sightings, experts said it’s still very, very safe to go in the water; Metzger, in a past interview, has told Patch that there’s no cause for concern.
First off, Metzger said, despite concerns expressed by the public: “If you think of the number of people in New York in the water over 100 years, billions, of those billions” only a handful have been negatively impacted by a shark, including a lifeguard bitten off the coast of Long Island in 2022. “The statistics show that the numbers of encounters are so infinitesimally small, it’s not even worth considering,” he said.
Joe Yaiullo, curator and co-founder of the Long Island Aquarium and Exhibition Center, said shark sightings are actually a good thing. “With them being the apex of the food chain, if they’re here, it’s a good thing for humans,” Yaiullo explained. “People shouldn’t think that more sharks in the water mean they’re going to be attacked. That’s not the case at all.”
Sharks are a sign of a healthy ecosystem with plentiful fish, clean water and less pollution, an indicator that the United States is doing a good job of managing its fisheries, he said.
Gone are the days of old Montauk tournaments, when sharks were caught, hung from the dock and weighed, then thrown into dumpsters, said Yaiullo. Today’s tournaments are tag-and-release events, he said.
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He added that sharks are at risk worldwide. “It’s important to spread a conservation message,” Yaiullo said. “Not eating shark fin soup, or engaging in all these bad practices. We humans kill a hundred million sharks every year, for shark teeth and jaws. We’re doing much more damage to them than they are to us. And if they are doing well, we are doing well.”
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