SEA 



SCIENCE 



Grants Yield Net Gains 



for Sharks 



w. 



By Cynthia Henderson Vega 



fith no breeze, 

 the air settles thick and steamy 

 aboard the 24-foot Privateer, 

 Yankee Dave. "Sharpnose," 

 yells Capt. Dave Beresoff as 

 he disentangles a dead 

 Atlantic sharpnose shark 

 from the net. 



Half a mile off Holden 

 Beach, Beresoff and his 1 5- 

 year-old son, Jeremy, are 

 doing something other 

 commercial fishers aren't 

 allowed to do — reeling in 

 nets set to catch sharks. 



Strict regulations now 

 prohibit sharks from being 

 commercially targeted within 

 the three-mile limits of state 

 waters. Generally, most other 

 shark catches are restricted to 

 one per trip per day. Just two 

 days earlier, Beresoff s catch 

 included two large tiger 

 sharks — one seven feet, and 

 the other nearly 10 feet long. 



But Beresoff isn't breaking the law. 

 He's conducting research funded by the 

 North Carolina Fishery Resource Grant 

 (FRG) program. Several times a week, 

 he heads out with Teresa Thorpe, 

 a biologist from UNC-Wilmington, 

 and UNC-W marine biology student 

 Rebecca Popovec. 



Tossing the small shark toward the 

 back of the boat, Beresoff continues pulling 

 in nets with Jeremy. 



Meanwhile Thorpe stands poised with 



Sharks of all sizes are found in North Carolina water 

 including this sand tiger. 



a sharp knife as she examines a dead 

 bonnethead shark. Unfazed by the gentle 

 waves endlessly rocking the boat, Thorpe 

 makes a surgically precise incision down 

 the shark's midsection. The cut reveals the 

 shark's two uteruses, each containing 

 several small embryos. 



Thorpe calls out technical data to Tara 

 Nye, substituting today for Popovec, who 

 meticulously records each fact. Length, 

 stomach contents and anything that might 

 tell the tale of the life and habits of a 

 particular shark are recorded. Live sharks 



are tagged and released. 



Thorpe pauses before 

 discarding the remains of the 

 pregnant shark overboard. 

 "It makes me sad somehow," 

 she says. 



But that's why they're 

 here. Thorpe and Beresoff 

 are investigating ways to 

 keep such sharks out of 

 commercial gill nets. 



In a previous FRG 

 study, Beresoff and Thorpe 

 tried using different mesh 

 sizes to reduce shark 

 bycatch. Finding that sharks 

 often become entangled 

 rather than "gilled," they 

 now want to see if making 

 nets more rigid will prevent 

 inadvertent shark catch. 



Today's catch of 22 

 sharks is relatively low — 

 five bonnetheads, 16 

 Atlantic sharpnose and a 

 three-foot blacktip. Most of the catch is 

 dead when brought on deck. As free- 

 swimming fish, Thorpe says, sharks die 

 quickly once entangled in nets. 



But even though most are dead, 

 regulations say nearly all must be thrown 

 back, something Beresoff decries as a 

 waste of a resource. 



As a former member of the N.C. 

 Marine Fisheries Commission, Beresoff 

 cites a need for accurate evaluations of 

 species abundance in order to devise fair 

 management plans. 



20 AUTUMN 2000 



