George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, displays shark specimens in Dickinson Hall on the University of Florida campus.
©Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Eric Zamora

The U.S. saw an upturn in attacks with 53, the most since 2000. There were seven fatalities worldwide, which is lower than 2011 but higher than the yearly average of 4.4 from 2001 to 2010. It is the second consecutive year for multiple shark attacks in Western Australia (5) and Reunion Island (3) in the southwest Indian Ocean, which indicates the localities have developed problematic situations, said George Burgess, director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

“Those two areas are sort of hot spots in the world – Western Australia is a function of white shark incidents and Reunion is a function most likely of bull shark incidents,” Burgess said. “What I’ve seen in all situations when there’s been a sudden upswing in an area is that human-causative factors are involved, such as changes in our behavior, changes in our abundance, or an overt shark-attracting product of something that we’re doing.”

Burgess displays shark specimens in Dickinson Hall on the UF campus.
©Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Eric Zamora

Eighty unprovoked attacks occurred worldwide, slightly more than 2011. Four attacks were recorded in South Africa, three of which resulted in death, which is higher than its recent average of one fatality per year. Australia had an average year with 14 attacks and two fatalities, despite the media attention regarding incidents in Western Australia that resulted in a government-sanctioned culling hunt for endangered white sharks.

“The concept of ‘let’s go out and kill them’ is an archaic approach to a shark attack problem, and its opportunities for success are generally slim-to-none,” Burgess said. “It’s mostly a feel-good revenge – like an ‘eye for an eye’ approach – when in fact you’re not likely to catch the shark that was involved in the situation. The shark that was involved in the situation also isn’t necessarily likely to do it again.”

Following long-term trends, most shark bites occurred in North American waters (42). The 53 U.S. incidents include Hawaii and Puerto Rico, which are not recorded as occurring in North American waters in the International Shark Attack File database. Florida led the country with 26, followed by Hawaii (10), California (5), South Carolina (5), North Carolina (2) and one each in Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and Puerto Rico. One fatality occurred in California, and Hawaii had the highest number of attacks since seven in 2007, more than its yearly average of four. Most incidents in Florida occurred in Brevard (8) and Volusia (7) counties because these central east coast beaches are high aquatic recreation areas, especially for surfers, Burgess said.

“The numbers from an international standpoint were on target for the last couple of years because, in theory, each year we should have more attacks than the previous year owing to the rise of human population from year to year,” Burgess said. “Thus the shark attack rate is not increasing even though the number of shark attacks is rising. Shark attack as a phenomenon is extremely uncommon, considering the millions of hours humans spend in the water each year.”

The 2012 U.S. fatality rate of 2 percent is far lower than the 22 percent for the rest of the world, likely due to superior safety and medical capabilities in the U.S., Burgess said.

“We could reduce risks by avoiding areas and times when sharks are most common, and where danger is at its highest,” Burgess said. “A perfect example of that is in Western Australia, where people have been getting hit in areas of known white shark abundance at times of year when white shark numbers are at their highest – the responsibility is upon us, as humans, to avoid such situations or else pay the consequence.”

Surfers experienced a majority of shark incidents with 60 percent, largely due to the provocative nature of the activity. Swimmers were affected by 22 percent of attacks, followed by divers, with 8 percent.

Burgess said 30 million to 70 million sharks are killed every year in fisheries, and people need to recognize humans pose a greater threat to elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays) than sharks do to humans. Worldwide over-fishing, especially to meet demands for flesh and fins used in shark fin soup, an Asian delicacy, continues to contribute to the decline in shark populations, Burgess said.

In the case of a shark attack, researchers advise taking a proactive response, such as hitting the shark’s nose, since they respect size and power.

“Shark attacks are rare and it doesn’t matter whether you call them attacks or bites or bumps – your chances of having any of them are slim,” Burgess said.

For additional safety tips and to view the 2012 Worldwide Shark Attack Summary, please visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/isaf.htm.

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Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360; Cell 352-318-3812; gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu

Burgess and other UF scientists conducted the documentary research allowing the National Marine Fisheries Service to list the largetooth sawfish as endangered July 12. He is scheduled as a keynote speaker to discuss sawfish populations during the 2011 International Symposium on Sharks in Dakar, Senegal, Monday through Wednesday.

“It’s a fairly desperate situation,” said Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “Anything that swims is eligible to be eaten – you have poor countries reaping their resources because they have no choice.”

Biologists from countries including France, Portugal and the U.S. have participated in workshops in West Africa since 2004 with the objective of educating African biologists about shark conservation strategies. This year’s meeting will include biodiversity reports from participating West African nations.

Burgess’ seminar will focus on identifying sawfish populations, which have dwindled to near-extinction in the last 100 years due to habitat loss and over-fishing. The smalltooth sawfish was the first marine fish listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2003.

“The sawfishes are the two most endangered of the elasmobranchs – the sharks, skates and rays – and the irony is, they are so large, yet they have disappeared under our noses,” Burgess said. “We hope to bring awareness to our colleagues on the eastern side of the Atlantic, where there is still a remnant population.”

Participants include biologists from Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania Senegal and Sierra Leone. Burgess said he hopes the conference will help international researchers better understand the resources and deficiencies of their fisheries. Funded mainly by Fondation Internationale pour le Banc d’Arguin, the biologists will also participate in workshops about identifying species in their areas and utilizing current fisheries technologies.

Burgess’ seminar on sawfish conservation, “We Hardly Knew Ye: The Decline of Atlantic Sawfishes,” will include the work of the Sawfish Implementation Team, a collaborative group of federal and other specialists to promote the recovery of the fish. The sawfish can grow to 25 feet, and its saw-like rostrum is easily caught in fishermen’s nets.

“Hopefully this presentation will bring the plight of sawfishes to the forefront of regional biologists and raise some awareness,” Burgess said. “Maybe they can do something to save the few left in their area.”

For many native societies worldwide, sawfish are culturally important and “considered symbols of strength, spirituality, and admiration,” according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In Senegal, the sawfish symbol is printed on paper money.

“There’s more sawfish on monetary bills than there are in the water right now,” Burgess said.

Mika Diop, a West African fisheries biologist who helped initiate the workshops in 2004, said this conference aims to highlight the achievements of the Sub-Regional Plan of Action for the conservation and sustainable management of shark populations in West Africa. “Another goal is to encourage reflection on the next steps emanating from this project,” he said.

Original workshop collaborators also include Burgess, Bernard Séret of the France Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle and Rui Coelho of Universidade do Algarve in Portugal. While researchers aim to help residents manage fish resources, they also understand fish are a primary food source for West African populations.

“I can’t in good faith tell these folks, ‘Don’t catch any sharks,’ if the sharks are the only thing they can very well eat,” Burgess said. “Unfortunately, the situation there is well beyond what biologists can do.”

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Museum of Natural History shark expert George Burgess departs for Mexico today to research three shark attacks near Cancun on Jan. 31 and March 21 and 24.

This marks Burgess’ fourth trip to Mexico to investigate shark incidents in the last 20 years. While attacks in Mexico are not as common as in more populated areas, the events of early 2011 drew media attention because of the tourists involved, Burgess said.

“It’s the same thing as Egypt in December, just a different language,” said Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at the Florida Museum, whose work is featured in the current issue of Playboy magazine.

In early December 2010, Burgess traveled to Egypt to investigate a series of shark attacks he described as the most unusual of his career. It involved six attacks, five within five days, and four of the five caused by two individual sharks.

Burgess concluded the incidents were caused by a combination of over-fishing, warmer-than-usual waters, the feeding of reef fishes and sharks, and the tossing of sheep carcasses from boats into the water.

“It sort of made this ‘perfect storm’ occur in the Red Sea, but there is the commonality of both [places] involving tourist destinations, hence the level of concern by local business and government,” Burgess said of the attacks in waters off Egypt and Mexico. “The real concern in all of these situations is how to make it go away and in that respect, it’s very much like the movie and the book ‘Jaws’.”

Burgess was summoned to Mexico by a representative of the local government and businesses of Cancun and will be working with other scientists to understand the circumstances from various perspectives, identify the species involved and hypothesize causes of the attacks, he said. According to reports, all three victims were injured while swimming about 30 to 300 feet from shore.

“A big part of what we end up doing in these situations is public education,” said Burgess, who was recently interviewed for an article about sharks scheduled to appear in the August issue of Outside magazine. “Sharks only kill four to five humans a year worldwide, but we as humans have to do what we can to reduce the risks.”

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers are hosting educators from throughout the state for its annual “Sawfish In Peril Educator Workshop” from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

As one of the few institutions tracking and protecting the endangered sawfish, the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Florida Program for Shark Research developed the workshop to help educators facilitate sawfish awareness and conservation programs in their local school districts and environmental education facilities.

“Sawfish are animals that can go extinct if we’re not very careful,” said Florida Program for Shark Research Director George Burgess. “Part of our mission here as a program is to not only conduct research on these animals, but to give them the maximum amount of protection they can receive.”

Twenty-three educators from high schools, aquariums and environmental agencies will hear presentations from a variety of researchers, participate in a stingray dissection activity and receive kits that include an instructor’s guide, teaching activities and Power Point presentations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service is funding the workshop, and annual sawfish educator workshops are planned for at least the next two years.

“The workshop is a continuation of our overall efforts to make people aware that this is a problem and that it’s in our backyard,” Burgess said. “We have a special obligation as Floridians to work hard to save what’s left of these creatures and oversee their hopeful return.”

Because sawfish have always been recognized as an exceptionally rare animal, their decline has slipped past scientists in the last 100 years, Burgess said. Records maintained by the shark program’s National Sawfish Encounter Database help researchers understand changes in habitat. In 2010, sightings were only reported in Florida, while the sawfish’s territory in the past ranged from New York to Texas.

“We hear from commercial fishermen who have been on the water 30 years and never seen one,” said sawfish database technician John Waters, who will present range maps at the workshop. “We put out a lot of brochures, fliers, boat signs for ramps – pretty much anything we can get out to people – to let them know we’re interested so they will report the sawfish when they see them.”

Sawfish can grow to 25 feet long and their decline is mainly attributed to over-fishing and habitat destruction, Burgess said. Similar to sharks, sawfish are elasmobranches, or cartilaginous fishes, but belong in the family of rays. Sawfish have been traced in the fossil record to at least 130 million years, but information about their biology is limited because the animal became endangered before specimens could be collected for research. Scientists estimate they can live from 30 to 60 years.

The small-toothed sawfish was the first marine animal placed on the endangered species list, and thanks to information collected through the national encounter database, the large-toothed sawfish will soon be added to the list, Burgess said.

“Part of our mission here is education outreach in addition to our normal research and conservation management,” Burgess said. “Nowhere is that more important than in sawfish.”

Pre-registered participants will attend the workshop, held at Powell Hall near the intersection of Southwest 34th Street and Hull Road. For more information about sawfish or to report a sighting, visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/sawfish/.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-318-3812, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Cathy Bester, 352-273-1942, cbester@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Researchers found tiger and thresher sharks showed the ability to orient at large distances, with tiger sharks swimming in direct paths at least 4 miles away and reaching specific resource areas about 30 miles away, said lead author Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine biologist in the division of ichthyology at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus.

A research highlight of the study in the current edition of the Journal of Animal Ecology will appear in the Thursday issue of the journal Nature.

“This study is important because it uses quantitative methods to try to understand the underlying ecological reasons for animal movement,” said Kevin Weng, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Studies such as this one are stepping stones to achieving predictive skill for animal movement, and better understanding of navigation, population dynamics and ecology.”

Papastamatiou said the study suggests the sharks have developed a ‘mental map’ of the area.

“There’s been several studies that have shown that marine predators, like sharks, penguins, turtles and tunas, move using particular types of random walks, but there’s going to be times when these animals don’t move randomly,” Papastamatiou said. “This study shows that at times sharks are able to orient to specific features, and in the case of tiger sharks, the distance over which they’re performing those directed walks is likely larger than the distance of the immediate range of their sensory systems.”

Researchers use the term “directed walk” to describe when a shark is moving toward a known goal rather than randomly swimming.

Researchers re-analyzed tracking data from acoustic transmitters on nine tiger sharks off the south shore of Oahu, Hawaii, in 1999, nine blacktip reef sharks in the lagoons of Palmyra Atoll in the Central Pacific Ocean in 2009, and 15 thresher sharks off the southern California coast in 2010. The animals were followed for at least seven hours and the statistical analysis determined whether the sharks were moving randomly or toward a known goal.

While tiger sharks have acute senses of sight, hearing and smell, their home range covers hundreds of square miles, including resource spots outside their sensory range. As bounce divers, they also almost continuously swim between the surface and about 250 to 330 feet below.

“At times these tiger sharks were swimming across a deep channel, open ocean, often at night,” Papastamatiou said. “So the question is, ‘What are they orienting to in such a seemingly featureless environment?’ It really just highlights how impressive their navigation can be.”

Researchers determined adult thresher sharks could orient at greater distances than juveniles, most likely because of their advanced development, Papastamatiou said. The study found blacktip reef sharks only traveled randomly, which has to do with their small home range compared to larger areas covered by thresher and tiger sharks.

Papastamatiou speculated the “mental map” the sharks create may have to do with their ability to sense magnetic fields.

“Probably the most interesting sense and still the most misunderstood is magnetic reception,” Papastamatiou said. “There is an increasing amount of evidence that lots of, if not all animals, can to a certain degree detect magnetic fields. That is something that could potentially be used over very large distances because there are gradients in the earth’s magnetic field and they could use those as landmarks — so even swimming through open ocean, which seems featureless to us, may not be featureless to sharks if they could detect these magnetic fields.”

He said the research would potentially be useful for obtaining accurate population dispersal models for the sharks so that movement patterns can be predicted after changes caused by fishing or the relocation of prey.

Study co-authors include Daniel Cartamil of the University of California San Diego, Christopher Lowe of California State University Long Beach, Carl Meyer and Kim Holland of the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Brad Wetherbee of the University of Rhode Island.

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Source: Yannis Papastamatiou, 352-273-1955, ypapastamatiou@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Ichthyologist George Burgess, director of the file housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, said Florida typically has the highest number of attacks worldwide, but 2010 marked the state’s fourth straight year of decline. Florida led the U.S. with 13 reported attacks, but the total was significantly lower than the yearly average of 23 over the past decade.

“Florida had its lowest total since 2004, which was 12,” Burgess said. “Maybe it’s a reflection of the downturn in the economy and the number of tourists coming to Florida, or the amount of money native Floridians can spend taking holidays and going to the beach.”

Worldwide, 79 attacks occurred in 2010, the highest number since 2000 (80), but the global total of six fatalities was only slightly above average, Burgess said. Attacks worldwide numbered 63 in 2009, close to the yearly average over the past decade of 63.5.

“Based on odds, you should have more attacks than the previous year,” Burgess said. “But the rate of attacks is not necessarily going up — population is rising and the interest in aquatic recreation grows. That will continue as population rises.”

The United States had 36 incidents, including five in North Carolina and four each in California, Hawaii and South Carolina. There were single attacks in Georgia, Maine, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Florida’s four-year decline began in 2007 with 31 attacks, followed by 28 in 2008, 18 in 2009 and 13 last year.

The U.S. led the world in shark attacks — an average year by U.S. standards — followed by Australia (14), South Africa (8), Vietnam (6) and Egypt (6). The most unusual event occurred off the coast of Egypt in early December with five attacks, including one fatality. The attacks occurred within five days and four of the five were attributed to two individual sharks.

“This was a situation that was hugely unusual by shark attack standards,” said Burgess, who has researched sharks at the museum for more than 35 years. “It was probably the most unusual shark incident of my career.”

Burgess suggests the attacks in the Red Sea may be attributed to a combination of natural and human factors. Some of the reasons include higher water temperatures caused by an unusually hot summer, international livestock traders dumping sheep carcasses into the water and divers feeding reef fishes and sharks, he said.

“The reality is, going into the sea is a wilderness experience,” Burgess said. “You’re visiting a foreign environment — it’s not a situation where you’re guaranteed success.”

Thankfully, in the sea the risks are low and the number of shark attacks in a year could be cut in half if people just used more common sense, Burgess said. There are simple ways to reduce the possibility of a shark attack, he said, including avoiding fishing areas and inlets where sharks gather and leaving the water when a shark is sighted.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

“The sea is actually very forgiving, certainly from the standpoint of the animal life,” Burgess said. “When you look at the big picture, it’s kind of ironic that these animals which are apex predators, the top of the food chain in the sea, are so readily caught.”

Because they are experts at finding their next meal, sharks are threatened by the lure of fishing lines. Humans kill 30 million to 70 million sharks per year in fisheries, while sharks claim an average of five human lives each year — the number of deaths caused by sharks is minimal compared to the billions of hours humans spend in the sea every year, he said.

“One-on-one in the sea, the sharks are going to win in a confrontation with humans if they really want to do so,” Burgess said. “But out of the sea, we can sit high and dry with a beer in our hand, put a line overboard and catch the fiercest animal in the sea.”

Surfers were the victims of slightly more than half of the incidents reported in 2010, nearly 51 percent of the cases. An economic downturn will usually influence tourists but not necessarily surfers, whose sport is relatively low-cost, Burgess said.

Swimmers and waders were the second-largest group affected, accounting for nearly 38 percent of the shark attacks internationally.

The 2010 Worldwide Shark Attack Summary may be viewed online at www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/isaf/isaf.htm.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, Cell 352-318-3812; gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

The discovery of the shark’s wide ranging ways shows that the species, which is subjected to heavy fishing pressure, needs multinational regulations to manage them on both sides of the Southern Atlantic, said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

“This is the first evidence of the transatlantic migration of a blue shark from the southwestern Atlantic Ocean to the southeastern Atlantic Ocean,” said Felipe Carvalho, a UF graduate student majoring in fisheries and aquatic sciences. He worked on a Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco (Brazil)-UF project that tagged a blue shark off the coast of Brazil and detected the fish off Africa 87 days later.

“We thought this migration might be happening, but we never had the data before to prove it,” Carvalho said.

The suggestion that the same stock of blue shark lives on both sides of the southern Atlantic Ocean allows management agencies to consider fishing regulations that would cover both geographical areas, said Burgess, who is co-supervising Carvalho’s research. Considered to act as one entity, fishes within the same stock have the same biological characteristics and movement patterns, which allow them to be managed together.

“Lots of people tag fishes and sharks, and sometimes when they make a movement from one place to another, there are lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ because it wasn’t known they could do that or go there,” Burgess said. “But this is a key piece of information that will have applicability toward fishery management.”

The most frequently caught shark species in the South Atlantic Ocean, the blue shark must be carefully managed because it is frequently captured in the nets of fishermen seeking tuna and swordfish. Burgess said some fishermen remove the fins and toss the sharks back into the water, dead or alive.

“Sharks are of real concern to biologists because they are taken in such huge numbers all over the world,” Burgess said. “Yet they are understudied because they don’t generate the economic revenue that tuna and swordfish do.”

Adding to sharks’ troubles are certain biological characteristics that lower their reproductive potential. Sharks may take 10 years or more to reach sexual maturity – compared with two to five years for many bony fishes. Pregnancies are long, typically a year or more and are followed by a resting period. As live-bearers, the number of young they can carry at one time is limited, he said.

“There are other animals that have what we call ‘life in the slow lane,’” he said. “Skates, rays, whales and sea turtles follow this same pattern of being slow growing and long lived with limited reproductive potential.”

Sharks caught and killed, especially when young, are cut off from the lengthy period of time required over a lifetime to reproduce the number of offspring needed to sustain a population, Burgess said.

Working with a Brazilian research team, Carvalho and his co-workers have attached tags to 10 sharks off the coast of Brazil and plan to tag 10 additional sharks. These satellite tags provide the location as latitude and longitude, and the temperature and depth, of the water where the shark is swimming.

“These tags are like mini-computers,” Burgess said. “If the antenna breaks the water surface, it can send up a signal to a satellite, which then bounces a signal back to us telling where it is.”

Because there is some error in determining location, the tags are most useful in large bodies of water, where being off by 10 to 20 miles doesn’t make a huge difference, he said.

Although blue sharks have been documented to move across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean in northern latitudes, this is the first time evidence has shown such migration to take place in the South Atlantic Ocean, Carvalho said.

“The next step of our study will look at whether this was just one individual who got happy feet and decided to boogie all the way across the ocean or if this is part of a larger pattern,” Burgess said.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

The 18-foot flats boat features an exclusive shark-themed wrap designed by renowned marine wildlife artist and scientist Guy Harvey. It is entered in the University of Florida Homecoming parade Friday and will be displayed afterward at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house at 1904 W. University Ave.

“I am delighted and grateful to accept this boat for our research initiatives,” said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “The partnership of Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, Hell’s Bay Boatworks, and our shark program powerfully furthers our shared goal of enlightened management and conservation of the oceans.”

Four UF alumni are involved with the donation. Steve Stock, CEO of Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and Guy Harvey Inc. of Davie, and Chris and Wendi Peterson, co-owners of Hell’s Bay Boatworks of Titusville, are donating the boat, motor and trailer. Michael Benedict, whose Daytona Beach advertising agency clients include both companies, introduced the corporations for the collaboration.

“We all bleed orange and blue,” Stock said. “We’re proud to be giving back to the University of Florida and taking the initiative of preserving the world’s oceans together.”

The custom-made boat does not draw much water and is useful for studying sharks and rays in their shallow marine habitats, Burgess said. Burgess and his team will use the boat to monitor shark and ray nursery areas in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, Indian River Lagoon, Florida Bay and Florida Keys to ensure normal migration out of the shallows of Florida.

“We custom made this boat to easily and quietly access even rougher shallow-water areas,” Peterson said. “It’s designed to avoid damaging the very resources that we’re researching and working to preserve.”

The front of the boat is flat and low to the water. It includes a special railing that allows researchers to work close to the water and prevents equipment from sliding off the boat, Peterson said. It also has a side-mounted steering console to provide more floor space for research equipment.

Burgess’ current work focuses on the recovery of smalltooth and largetooth sawfish. The smalltooth sawfish is the first endangered marine species listed in U.S. waters and the largetooth is proposed for endangered species status.

“Since full recovery of sawfish is going to take about 100 years, education of both the general public and the next generation of scientists is very important to our conservation initiatives,” Burgess said. “This endangered species is at our doorstep and we need to reach out to the public about protecting its critical habitats.”

Burgess is an appointed member of the National Marine Fisheries Service Smalltooth Sawfish Implementation Team which oversees recovery of the endangered species. In addition to its research initiatives, the Florida Program for Shark Research promotes recovery awareness through websites, classroom teaching and production of educational materials. The team also maintains the National Sawfish Encounter Database, which lists all known records of sawfishes in the U.S and is supported by the federal government, and the International Shark Attack File, a record of worldwide shark attacks currently supported by a grant from the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation.

“George is frequently the scientific voice of reason during the Discovery Channel’s shark week program of blood, guts and gore,” Stock said. “At the end of the day, it’s necessary to speak factually when educating the public about sharks. That’s why the shark attack files are important.”

The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation also is raffling another boat donated by Peer Gynt USA, and plans to give a portion of the proceeds to the shark research program. The 26-foot boat, valued at $125,000, will be displayed at the Pi Kappa Alpha house during Homecoming.

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Source: Jon Bloch, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Vilma Jarvinen, vjarvinen@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Researchers analyzed statistics from shark attacks that occurred in Florida’s Volusia County, dubbed the “Shark Attack Capital of the World,” between 1956 and 2008. They also spent a year observing people between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

“It’s basically an analysis of why, where and when in an area that traditionally has had more shark-human interactions than any other stretch of coastline in the world,” he said. “One of our students, Brittany Garner, essentially camped out there, counted the number of heads on the beach and took photographs.”

While this 47-mile-long section of Central Florida’s Atlantic coast leads in human-shark skirmishes, making up 21 percent of all global attacks between 1999 and 2008, most are “hit and run” incidents that seldom cause serious injury and no fatalities occurred.

“Calling them attacks is probably a misnomer because the consequences are usually no more severe than a dog bite,” Burgess said. “They’re not the same kind of bites made by 10- to 20-foot-long white sharks that you have off the coast of California. Here we see a different style of attack, primarily perpetrated by smaller fish-eating sharks such as spinners and blacktips that are less than 6 to 7 feet long, which because of their size normally seek smaller prey.”

There have been 231 shark attacks between the first one reported in 1956 in Volusia County and 2008, said Burgess, who also oversees the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History. The study, part of which was published recently in the edited volume “Sharks and Their Relatives II,” uses statistics from 220 of those cases for which detailed information is available.

Human, shark and environmental factors combine to create a perfect storm of favorable conditions in Volusia County for attacks, particularly near Ponce Inlet between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, he said.

The more people in the water the greater the chances they will encounter a shark, and New Smyrna Beach south of the inlet is a “hot spot” for surfers with its well developed sand bars and good waves, Burgess said. Hand splashing and feet kicking provoke sharks, which bite and release what they mistake for normal prey items in the turbid waters.

Also, the strong tidal flow in the inlet makes it “an aquatic smorgasbord of food items for sharks, barracudas, mackerel and other large predators,” boosting shark numbers, he said.

Young white males were attacked most because they spend the most time in the water, Burgess said. The analysis showed 90 percent of victims were male, 77 percent of 196 victims were between 11 and 30 years old and in the 171 cases where race was known, 98 percent were white. The study also found more than half of the 220 victims were bitten on the leg — 158 — more than five times the number bitten on the arms — 34 — the second highest body part to be injured.

Surfers were the most frequent victims, making up 61 percent of the total. Burgess said they tended to be bitten more in the early morning and late afternoon when waves were highest and they spend more time surfing.

“At the time of the attack, most of the surfers were sitting or holding onto the board waiting for a wave, which explains why most surf victims were bitten on the legs,” he said.

Sharks are not weekend warriors. Rather it is human leisure that leads to the fewest number of human encounters on Wednesdays and the highest on Sundays, followed by Saturdays. “There are a fair number of attacks on Fridays as well, reflective of people skipping work and taking three-day weekends,” Burgess said.

The analysis showed the greatest number of attacks occurred during new moons, followed by full moons, the edges of the lunar extreme when the moon has its biggest pull on the tidal phase. Probably the moon’s phases influence the movements and reproductive patterns of fish, the shark’s food source, just as they affect human behavior, Burgess said.

Attacks were highest during the swimming season, from May through October, peaking in August. Burgess said attacks spiked in April as sharks began their seasonal northern migration up the eastern coast of the United States.

The study shows most incidents involved one bite, occurred in turbid, murky or muddy waters and were at the water’s surface. Only one attack was on a diver.

Burgess said more victims wore swimsuits that were black and white than any other color combination, followed by black and yellow, attesting to sharks’ abilities to see contrast.

The analysis shows that between 1999 and 2008, shark attacks worldwide numbered 639, of which there were 428 reports in the United States, 275 in Florida and 135 in Volusia County.

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Source: George Burgess, 352-392-2360, gburgess@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Cathy Keen, 352-392-0186, ckeen@ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Museum of Natural History researchers have discovered a 10-million-year-old Neotropical nursery area for the extinct megalodon shark in Panama, providing fossil evidence the fish used these areas to protect their young for millions of years.

Appearing in this week’s edition of the journal PLoS ONE, the article is the first thorough study of megalodon juveniles and gives scientists a better picture of shark behavior.

“The study provides evidence of megalodon behavior in the fossil record,” said lead author Catalina Pimiento, who just completed a master’s degree in zoology from the University of Florida and worked in the Florida Museum’s vertebrate paleontology division. “Behavior doesn’t fossilize, but we were able to interpret ancient protection strategies used by extinct sharks based on the fossil record.”

Previously suggested fossil shark paleo-nursery areas, the Paleocene Williamsburg Formation and late Oligocene Chandler Bridge Formation of South Carolina, were based only on the anecdotal presence of juvenile teeth accompanied by marine mammals.

“Neither of the collections from previously suggested nursery grounds has been as rigorously analyzed as the specimens in this study, which better supports the presence of this paleo-nursery area,” Pimiento said.

In the current study, funded by the National Science Foundation, researchers collected 400 fossil shark teeth between 2007 and 2009 from the shallow marine Gatun Formation, which connected the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea during the late Miocene Epoch in Panama. Most of the 28 Carcharocles megalodon specimens were surprisingly small, Pimiento said, and analysis determined the size did not relate to tooth position in the jaw or the size of the species during the late Miocene.

“Our study suggests the specimens represent mostly juveniles with lengths between 2 and 10.5 meters,” Pimiento said.

Michael Gottfried, associate professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology at Michigan State University Museum, helped review the PLoS ONE article. His method of determining the skeletal anatomy of megalodon sharks based on comparisons with the great white shark was used in this study. Though Gottfried said he did not completely agree with all of the study’s conclusions, he believes the findings are interesting.

“Shark nursery areas are very poorly known, both for living and fossil species,” Gottfried said. “If the teeth from Panama described by Catalina and her collaborators do indeed come from a nursery area for the giant megalodon shark, they have the potential to provide a lot of interesting information on the paleobiology of this enormous, but still very enigmatic, fossil species.”

Nursery areas for sharks have ample food resources and serve as protection for juveniles and neonates from predators. Some scientists argue megalodon did not need nursery areas to protect their young because it was the largest shark that ever lived. But researchers discovered teeth in the study area from juvenile megalodon sharks as small as 2 meters long. Other studies also have confirmed present-day large sharks such as the tiger shark, great hammerhead and the white shark use nursery areas.

Other studies have shown white sharks, which belong to the same order as megalodon, seasonally return to the eastern Pacific and other coastal “hot spots” for feeding, foraging and mating. The researchers considered the hypothesis that megalodon sharks used the grounds for feeding and reproduction rather than as a protective nursery area, but rejected the possibility based on the high number of juveniles, presence of neonates, shallow depth of the area and the scarcity of large mammals.

“This study of the megalodon teeth from Panama and its paleobiologic implications demonstrates the potential information that other fossil shark faunas can give us, including survival strategies, feeding habits and life histories,” said Dana Ehret, second author and vertebrate paleontology graduate student at the Florida Museum.

Other authors are Bruce MacFadden, Florida Museum of Natural History vertebrate paleontology curator, and Gordon Hubbell of Jaws International.

Most of the teeth collected are located in the Florida Museum of Natural History, which also houses the Florida Program for Shark Research and the International Shark Attack File.

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Sources: Dana Ehret, 352-871-7944, dehret@flmnh.ufl.edu
Catalina Pimiento, pimientoc@ufl.edu
Writer: Vilma Jarvinen, vjarvinen@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu