Rafael Lima wanted to witness up close the critical role sharks play in our ecosystem. The School of Communication lecturer got his chance during an open water shark dive at the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation (also known as the Bimini Sharklab), launched in 1990 by alumnus Samuel H. Gruber, B.S. ’60, M.S. ’66, Ph.D. ’69, an emeritus professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

A newly released biography, Shark Doc, Shark Lab: The Life and Work of Samuel Gruber, explores the scientist’s drive to understand and protect one of the most revered yet misunderstood predators in the world. As Gruber once told National Geographic Explorer: “If people understand the great importance and critical role of sharks in the sea as well as the plight of these top predators I believe the fear and loathing for sharks would disappear and shark conservation would be a slam dunk.”

All funds generated from the sales of the book, written by Jeremy Staff0rd-Deitsch and sponsored by Save Our Seas Foundation, will go toward rebuilding the 26-year-old Bimini Sharklab in Bimini, Bahamas, into a hurricane-proof, environmentally friendly field station.

Below is Lima’s account of swimming with the sharks:

This all happens in an instant. The gash of a mouth yawns open.
The upper and lower jaws unhinge and the gums fold back over the jawbone. Rows of pearl-white triangular teeth appear in neat semi-circular rows. The muscular body flexes, accelerating the shark faster than you thought possible for an animal the size of a Mazda Miata. The mouth continues to curl back as though the shark is beginning to peel itself backwards from the snout; the expression now the familiar angry snarl of spiked teeth and bullet nose.

You notice the tip of the dorsal fin as it breaks the surface is leaving tiny tornadoes of bubbles as the shark writhes towards you. One small eye (its pupil slit, like a cat’s) stares unblinking and emotionless.

A chunk of bait fish floats a few inches above your mask, directly in your line of vision, drifting slowly down. He’s going to grab that piece of fish, you tell yourself. How did the chum get so close to me?

You have just enough time to pull your head back as ten feet of muscle propelling an open mouth full or razor teeth snaps closed less than a foot from your face. You close your eyes, turn your head, and feel the compression wave as the shark’s jaws snap, expelling water through its gills.

You open your eyes in time to see the gills of the shark billow open, spitting out bits of chum, and the familiar tiger stripes of the animal flashing by. The tail fans languidly and you see the shark drifting down, away into the blue at the limit of your vision.

Now there are maybe 15 other sharks circling, swooping, leaving trails of bubbles as they break the surface and dive toward you one by one.

Clambering up the dive ladder of the small outboard boat, you are greeted by a gray-bearded man wearing a long-sleeve khaki shirt, torn shorts and a bandana sitting with his feet on the helm of a small power boat. This is “Doc Gruber” (as he’s known to his students). Samuel “Sonny” Gruber, B.S. ’60, M.S. ’66, Ph.D. ’69,  is an emeritus professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and director of the Bimini Biological Field Station, as well as a council member of the Bahamas National Trust. Suffice it to say that if anyone can be called the shark guru it’s Doc Gruber.

Asked whether swimming so close to this many sharks isn’t a little dangerous, Gruber replies, “We’ve been doing this dive for 30 years, and we haven’t had one bite yet. They are not the monsters everyone thinks they are. They are interested in the food—not you.”

And there lies the heart of Doc Gruber’s philosophy and approach to the animals he’s studied and protected for close to four decades. They are not the vicious man-eaters everyone thinks they are. He invites alumni and others to get wet and witness this underwater scene—chum in the water and 20 animals circling and feeding.

BIMINI SHARKLAB

Known as the Gateway to the Bahamas, the small islands of Bimini are located less than 50 miles from Florida. Bimini’s warm, clear waters flow from the Gulf Stream up onto the Great Bahama Bank. These waters have made Bimini a world-famous destination for big game fishing, scuba diving, and shark research.

In 1990 Gruber founded the Bimini Biological Field Station (also known as Bimini Sharklab) on the island of South Bimini as a place for him and his students to carry out field research on sharks full-time. He still owns and operates it as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

The Sharklab offers volunteers the opportunity to get in-depth experience in many aspects of marine field biology, as well as become familiar with the workings of a remote field station. It depends on the efforts of the thousands of dedicated volunteers from all over the globe who have visited since its launch more than 25 years ago.

TEAM EFFORT

Shark ecotourism in the Bahamas generates $70 million per year and not one shark is killed. The same income can be generated for decades to come, shark experts like Gruber say. On the other hand, shark fishing may generate a large income for a couple of years, and then it comes to a halt when the population is depleted. The result is annihilation and the loss of the species forever, with untold environmental consequences. Sharks (like many bony fish) cannot reproduce fast enough to accommodate any level of extraction. They are slow-growing, long-lived animals who reach maturity at a late age and have few offspring. Ecologically, removing sharks from healthy reef systems will bring about the demise of these marine systems, which are the mainstay of the Bahamian economy: tourism.

In March 2011, Doc Gruber and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation joined forces with the Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries, Environment and Tourism in a bid to create a shark protected zone. Gruber, Harvey, and other concerned organizations responded to the threat of commercial harvesting of shark fins to Asia. The Bahamas National Trust and the PEW Environmental Group lobbied the government for protection of Bahamas sharks.

On July 5, 2011, it was announced by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries that an amendment to the fisheries law now makes it illegal to target, catch, sell, import, or export sharks within the Bahamas 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The Bahamas has become a shark sanctuary, thanks in no small part to the work of Doc Gruber.

You can read more about Gruber’s contributions to the U at miami.edu/magazine.

SHARK WEEK APPETIZER

Alumnus Neil Hammerschlag, Ph.D. ’10, also has been studying, sampling, tagging, and tracking sharks for years as part of his work as research assistant professor at the Rosenstiel School and Abess Center for Ecosystem Science & Policy.

Director of the Shark Research & Conservation Program at UM, Hammerschlag is an expert on the ecology and conservation of sharks. He also oversees a popular outreach program that involves citizen science shark-tagging trips and collecting data that contribute to shark conservation efforts.

Hammerschlag is featured in a National Geographic program—Mission Critical: Sharks Under Attack—which debuted May 22 and airs again on Sunday, May 29 at 10 a.m. ET.

In the program, Hammerschlag places a special camera “crittercam” on the dorsal fin of a tiger shark, providing a shark-eye view of the swimming predator. This is part of Hammerschlag’s ongoing research on the behavioral ecology of tiger sharks in the Bahamas.

Read more about his work at miami.edu/magazine.

Click here to watch a shark-tagging trip.

His forehead showing beads of sweat after nearly two hours at sea, Neil Hammerschlag, Ph.D. ’10, reaches over the stern of the 36-foot research vessel Maven to test the tension on the end of the line. He knows almost immediately he’s hooked something big. His crewmates, who have spent the better part of the morning deploying bait traps marked by buoys, edge closer to the ship’s starboard, trying to get a glimpse of whatever has been caught. Everyone aboard knows that the waters surrounding Broad Key are an Atlantis to a medley of marine life, from massive grouper to fearsome-looking barracuda. But it’s the apex predators—sharks who rule the oceanic food chain—the crew is pursuing.

With the Maven’s twin engines cut, Hammerschlag yanks hard on the taut fishing leader, pulling the catch closer to the surface. Then, rising like a levi­athan from the depths, the creature’s blunt nose and vertical stripes break through the waves, leaving no doubt about its identity.

“We got a tiger shark, guys!” shouts Hammerschlag, high-fiving some of his young shipmates.

From Cape Cod to the Caribbean, from the Gulf of Mexico to Southern California, and from the Hawaiian to Solomon islands, tiger sharks inhabit oceans around the world, growing as long as 18 feet and consuming just about anything they want—even automobile license plates, as the 1975 movie Jaws depicted. But there’s still plenty about Galeocerdo cuvier—and many other mighty, yet still largely mysterious, sharks—scientists would like to know, such as how much time they spend in certain waters, their migration routes, their favorite feeding and mating areas, and why some of them dive to such incredible depths.

To find those answers, Hammerschlag, a research assistant professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and his students venture out to sea anywhere from four to six times a month to catch sharks, run them through a battery of quick field tests and—most important—tag them with a tracking device before releasing them back into their marine habitat.

Their expeditions form the foundation of UM’s R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program (RJD), which Hammerschlag helped launch in 2010. During the tagging trip aboard the Maven to Broad Key, a small islet in the Upper Florida Keys, Hammerschlag and his crew catch and tag ten sharks, including the 7-foot-long female tiger shark that put up a fierce fight. UM graduate student Jake Jerome pulls her onto a partially submerged metal platform attached to the Maven’s starboard, then he, Hammerschlag, and another student, Gabi Goodrich, mount the shark’s back. They need to hold it steady for only a short while—long enough to take blood and tissue samples and to attach a tracking device to its dorsal fin. Then, with a push, they send the animal on its way. Hammerschlag dives in next to the shark to monitor its health and make sure it swims off safely.

He’s had many other in-water experiences—including the time 11 years ago when, as a young student on a dive trip, he dove head first into the water to get a better look at a tiger shark and wound up so close to the big fish that it could have taken a bite out of him. Hammerschlag emerged from that encounter unscathed, he recalls, his fascination with sharks heightened a hundred fold.

Today, as director of RJD, he instills his passion for sharks in all of the program’s initiatives, leading shark-tagging trips and collecting data that contribute to shark conservation efforts. The activities are important, for an ecosystem without its apex predator can have a domino effect on other species, allowing some populations to explode, which could then impact yet other species. “Research has begun to show that apex predatory sharks can help maintain healthy marine ecosystems,” Hammerschlag explains.

Yet many shark populations around the world are in decline, with some species endangered and others on the edge of extinction. By some estimates, close to 100 million sharks are killed each year, targeted for their meat, liver oil, and cartilage, but mostly for their fins, which are chopped off and used to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in East Asia.

Those numbers are alarming, especially given that most sharks don’t mature until their teens, reproduce slowly (the spiny dogfish has a gestation period of up to 22 months), and produce only a few offspring.

RJD shark-tagging expeditions help produce the hard data policymakers need to protect threatened species of sharks. “It could be something as simple as expanding protected areas,” says Hammerschlag. So getting that data into the hands of legislators becomes vital. He and his team are using two different kinds of tags to gather information: spaghetti tags, which are marked with basic data such as when and where the shark was caught and its size at release, and sophisticated satellite tags—one that transmits information in near-real time and another that archives information, eventually detaching from the shark’s dorsal fin and floating up to the surface to broadcast its stored data. The satellite tags are attached only to hammerhead, tiger, and bull sharks—the apex predators in the study area. Hammerschlag describes the satellite tags as “high-powered laptops” on the backs of sharks, gizmos that can record a shark’s orientation, how fast it swims, the temperature of the water in which it swims, even how deep it dives. Last year, he and his team caught 363 sharks, attaching satellite tags to 38 of them.

Sometimes the satellite tags stop working, detaching prematurely from a shark’s fin or losing battery power. “If I can get nine months out of them, I’m pretty happy,” Hammerschlag says.

The data have revealed much. He’s discovered that some sharks are spending only a short time in protected waters, venturing far out to sea during most other periods. One tiger shark swam more than 600 miles into the open ocean, surprising even Hammerschlag. “It’s virtually impossible to protect sharks throughout such a massive area,” he says. “But certain critical areas, or hot spots, such as their mating and feeding grounds and migratory routes, can be protected.”

He’s learned that bull sharks and tarpon, a large tropical marine fish, sometimes hunt in the same areas, but tarpon adjust their feeding habits to avoid being eaten by bull sharks. Such data help document the ecosystem importance of bull sharks in the region.

Hammerschlag is also teaming with marine biologist Jerald S. Ault, Ph.D. ’88, a Rosenstiel School professor who is attaching satellite tags to sharks, tuna, tarpon, and billfish in the Gulf of Mexico in hopes that the creatures will send out data that will improve hurricane forecasting. The idea is that because warm water fuels storms, the fish could act as biological sensors for collecting data on water temperatures that might be conducive to hurricanes.

Other studies have used data from Hammerschlag’s shark-tagging work to look at the impact of dive tourism on the large-scale movements of sharks, as well as the survivability rates of different shark species in catch-and-release programs. “We’re learning things that only a short time ago we didn’t have the capability of doing,” says Hammerschlag.

But what happens in the extreme depths of the ocean still remains largely a mystery. One of the tiger sharks Hammerschlag had been monitoring once dove 2,600 feet. “What’s it doing down there?” he wondered. Newer technology, like a camera he’s developing with collaborators and engineers that would be attached to the backs of sharks, could one day provide the answer.

Until that time, Hammerschlag relies on observation and the electronic tracking devices, which yield a wealth of information but at a pretty penny—$2,500 per tag with a half a year of airtime. “I would put a satellite tag on more sharks if I had the money,” says Hammerschlag.

People like Graham Uffelman are offsetting some of those costs, participating in and helping to bankroll shark-tagging expeditions through UM’s Citizen Science initiative. Uffelman and his sons Charlie, 12, and Will, 10, participated in the March shark-tagging expedition to Broad Key. The New York real estate broker paid for the cost of the satellite tag attached to the first tiger shark caught that day. His sons adopted the shark, naming it Charlie Will and tracking its movements via a special website.

Last year, more than 1,600 people participated in 71 shark-tagging trips with RJD. “As scientists, we don’t want our work to be done in a vacuum,” Hammerschlag says. “We’d like it to have broad impact.” Especially among high school students, who, through a youth outreach program, make up a significant portion of RJD’s shark-tagging participants—more than 1,000 in 2013 alone. “Rather than a 45-minute lecture or textbook, the boat becomes their classroom, and they get to do science out in the field,” says Hammerschlag.

RJD’s shark-tagging initiative grew out of a high school outreach effort he spearheaded as a UM graduate student, exposing youngsters to field research. When Minnesota businesswoman Marian Dunlap heard about his work, she supported the program’s expansion through a donation in honor of her late husband, Richard J. Dunlap, an avid fisherman dedicated to conserving the Florida Keys. Launched in 2010 as a joint initiative of the Rosenstiel School and UM’s Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, the R.J. Dunlap Program advances ocean conservation and scientific literacy via a score of projects and outreach activities.

But only so many people each year can experience one of RJD’s shark-tagging trips. For those who can’t, Hammerschlag has launched a website, rjd.miami.edu/virtual-expeditions, that takes users on a virtual shark-tagging expedition, starting at the boat dock, where equipment is loaded, and going to the high seas, where they see what it’s like to tag a shark.

Hammerschlag’s undergraduate and graduate students are a mainstay on the real-world trips, baiting hooks with barracuda, tuna, and jack; conducting field tests; and, later, doing research of their own. Many of them draw inspiration from Hammerschlag. “You can have a conversation with Neil, and by the time it’s over, you’ll want to be a shark researcher,” says Goodrich, a third-year marine science and biology major from Washington, D.C., who’s been part of Hammerschlag’s shark-tagging team since she was a freshman. She is studying sharks’ remarkable ability to heal quickly, hoping that one day she can duplicate their wound-healing powers in humans.

Marine biology major Samantha Owen, who sports a tattoo of Poseidon’s trident on her right arm, describes sharks as “utterly beautiful, but not a species many people defend.” Movies like Jaws and news stories on people attacked by sharks, she notes, have given the predators a bad reputation. Hammerschlag believes more educational programming, and citizen-supported research trips, can help humans understand the importance of sharks.

Click here to learn more about Hammerschlag’s work and even join his team on a shark research trip.

R+D Update

The Tweet Science

David Shiffman, a Ph.D. student at the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, and his collaborators published a study on the scientific and scholarly use of tweeting, titled, “The role of Twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication,” earlier this year in the journal Ideas in Ecology and Evolution. Shiffman has been named one of the top biologists to follow on Twitter (@WhySharksMatter). Read more at http://tinyurl.com/l7jlcaa.

Breakthrough for Blinding Disease

Research led by physician-scientists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute has produced a breakthrough in retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the United States. Rong Wen and Byron L. Lam, professors of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer and directors of the institute’s Adrienne Arsht Hope for Vision Center of Retinal Degeneration Research, in collaboration with biochemist Ziqiang Guan, of Duke University Medical School, discovered a key marker in blood and urine that can identify people who carry genetic mutations in a gene responsible for retinitis pigmentosa. The Journal of Lipid Research published their research paper this past September. “A simple urine test can tell who has the RP-causing mutations,” says Wen. The first mutation in this gene, named DHDDS, was identified in 2011 by scientists at the Miller School of Medicine, including Stephan Züchner, professor and interim chair of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics, Wen, Lam, and Margaret A. Pericak-Vance, director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/n553fhx.

Plankton to the People

Plankton feed the oceans and pull CO2 from the air. To increase our understanding of these critically important yet tiny aquatic organisms, scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have launched www.planktonportal.org. Developed by emeritus professor of marine biology and fisheries Robert K. Cowen, along with research associate Cedric Guigand and graduate students Jessica Luo and Adam Greer, this citizen-supported science project invites volunteers to help classify the plankton pictured in millions of images that were collected by an underwater robot engineered at UM with help from Bellamare LLC and funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Science Foundation.