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Sandbar Shark
Career #1
Many fishermen, both commercial and not, help out in many ways with information on shark migration.
Fishermen that partner with special tagging programs help scientists determine migration patterns and distributions of sharks. In one tagging program from 1962 to 2000 more than 165,000 sharks of 40 different species were tagged and more than 9,500 of 32 different species were recaptured.
There are also fishermen who have been keeping records of their fishing activities over the years which helps scientists with shark information. Using logbooks can determine over time how many sharks a fisherman can catch based on how many hours he or she is fishing, and using that and which species care caught in which habitats gives information on shark migration.
The fisherman who are targeting sharks, are to allow official observers to accompany the at any given fishing trip. In this way the fishermen are helping the scientist collect more information about the sharks and the habitat they are in and can also gather information about size, and sex of the shark.
Many of the fishermen who help with information on the sharks work for commercial companies, and some are self-employed.
Fishermen are probably more comfortable out at sea then on land, and that’s probably a good thing, considering that’s where the fishermen do most of their work, out at sea. Documenting the sharks they catch or see, and sometimes even helping to tag them.
Skills that may be necessary for this job include, an sufficient knowledge in biology as well as the skills the need to be good fishermen.
I don’t know if just one real person from the hundreds, if not thousands of people who help the scientists can be picked out from the rest. They are all important to the studies, and most remain unknown.