Library – Page 6 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Sharks! MOOC videos (part I)

I completed the edX-hosted Sharks! MOOC, presented by Cornell University and the University of Queensland, and it was excellent. The content was clear and for me, who stupidly quit high school biology at the age of 14 for the sake of a more classical (less useful) education, filled in a large number of gaps in my understanding of sharks and rays.

The course format was a mix of video lectures and interviews, notes, diagrams and multiple choice questions for grading purposes. The videos are available on youtube – you can check out the channel containing all this year’s videos, or a giant playlist containing all the videos from the 2015 iteration of the course.

I’m going to link to some of the most interesting videos below, so you can get a taster of what the course was like. Please sign up next time it gets offered, if you didn’t do so this time!

Broadnose sevengill cowshark at Shark Alley

Week 1: The Big Shark Picture – Biodiversity and Evolution

Intro – the big shark picture

Shark tracking

Light, depth and landforms

A walk through deep time

Bear Gulch – a golden age of sharks

Megatooths of Maryland

Week 2: Miracles of Evolution – Functional Morphology and Physiology

Introduction – miracles of evolution

Blue shark vs white shark

Pursue or ambush?

Manta ray feeding and migration

Shark vs mammal circulation

Breathing water

Countercurrent gas exchange

Osmoregulation in the bull shark

Greenland sharks

Reproduction in the sand tiger (ragged tooth) shark

Modes of reproduction

Week 3 (shark brains and behaviour) and 4 (sharks in the world) videos will follow in a separate post.

Newsletter: Testing 123

Hi divers

Weekend dive plans

Saturday: Two launches from False Bay Yacht Club, meeting at 8.00 am

A long period 3 metre swell arrives tomorrow, drops on Saturday and then builds again on Sunday. I am planning two launches early on Saturday morning as I have several students to certify. We will meet in the car park at False Bay Yacht Club at 8.00 am. Destination unknown and weather dependent. If you’re keen on a magical mystery tour, drop me an email, text or Whatsapp.

Keeping busy

In case you missed it on the blog this week, we tested one of our self-inflating life jackets in the pool, to see what would happen when it got wet. It works!

Maritime archaeologist John Gribble is speaking at the auditorium of the South African Astronomical Observatory on Wednesday 17 August, 4.30 for 5.00 pm. His talk is entitled “From Shipwrecks to Hand Axes: An Introduction to South Africa’s Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage” and is described as follows:

South Africa’s maritime and underwater cultural heritage is surprisingly diverse and extremely rich. Although shipwrecks are the most obvious elements of this rich heritage resource, there are a range of pre-colonial maritime heritage resources that are less well known. This talk will introduce South Africa’s maritime and underwater cultural heritage, highlight the archaeological importance of this resource, and touch on a few examples of interesting, local historical wrecks.

There is no need to book, the event is free to the public.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

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Article: The New York Times Magazine on animal tagging

Staying with our informal theme of the last few weeks’ (admittedly sporadic) posts, let’s look at a recent article from the New York Times Magazine. Not solely focused on marine animal studies, the article explains how technology has enabled even the general public to directly observe and learn about the migrations of birds, sharks and other animals. The utility of this kind of information is obvious:

By discovering the precise routes animals take during migration, scientists can assess the threats they face, like environments altered by habitat loss and overhunting.

The article’s author is brilliant nature writer Helen MacDonald, who wrote H is for Hawk, and she goes on to muse about the meaning of the relatively few individually tagged and named animals which become icons of their species as they appear to transverse a simplified, borderless planet in solitude. (The OCEARCH sharks on their satellite map refer!) It is easy to lose sight of the rigours of the environments they move through, but easy to become invested in the future of particular individuals.

Erik Vance’s article on great white sharks for National Geographic covers tagging, and he elaborates on his blog about how tags can facilitate population estimates. You can also read about whale tagging, tuna tagging, and the tagging study taking place on False Bay’s cowsharks.

What a time to be alive. Read the full New York Times Magazine article here.

Two ways to count sharks

Did you pick up the July edition of National Geographic to read about great white sharks, or read the article online? (Pro tip: you should.)

The article’s author, science writer Erik Vance, contributes to a blog that I follow called The Last Word on Nothing. I was delighted to read a follow-up he posted to his National Geographic feature, explaining how scientists count sharks. At the heart of the method is a beautiful piece of statistics (a model) that allows scientists to draw conclusions about the size of a population – some of whom are tagged or marked – based on only a sample of the individuals, and what proportion of those sampled individuals is tagged.

Why is it important to know how many great white sharks (or cowsharks, or whale sharks, or or or…) there are? The most obvious answer relates to conservation: if we have a baseline population estimate, we can then determine whether it is increasing or decreasing over time. What is the status of the population? Are these animals endangered, or flourishing? Are conservation measures necessary? Are they effective?

Go and read about counting sharks here. An important thing to pay attention to when you are reading any scientific model is what the underlying assumptions are, because they will show you the circumstances under which the model will fail.

And for some hot off the press South African research on a related subject but taking a different (genetic) approach, check out this press release. The study’s author, Sara Andreotti, spoke on the topic at the SA Shark and Ray Symposium in 2015.

Help Shark Spotters create a free beach info smartphone app!

The signs and Shark Spotters flag at Glencairn

Shark Spotters have been keeping bathers and surfers safe, and providing groundbreaking research on Cape Town’s white sharks, for over 10 years. They are currently developing a smartphone app that will provide information on sightings of sharks and other marine life, sea conditions, and other information pertinent to the Shark Spotters program.

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZK4KtEkBYU&w=540″]

The app will be available free of charge, but there are some development costs that have to be raised before it can be launched.

Click here to donate – every bit helps!

Newsletter: Diving 9 to 5

Hi divers

Weekend dive plans

Saturday: Shore dives at Long Beach

Sunday: Boat dives from Simon’s Town jetty at 10.00 to the wreck of the Brunswick and 12.30, site to be determined on the day

The cold front seems to have passed by and the second one that was meant to arrive tomorrow seems now to be giving us a miss. We had 40 mm of rain at home on Thursday, for which we are grateful. The break in the weather means there is a good chance some diving might happen this weekend!

I am going to shore dive on Saturday at Long Beach and launch on Sunday, the first dive being to the Brunswick, meeting on the jetty in Simon’s Town at 10.00am. The second dive will be at 12.30, the location weather and viz dependent.

If you want to dive, let me know!

Support Shark Spotters

Don’t forget to donate to help the Shark Spotters complete their beach info smartphone app! Also, there’s an auction and comedy evening (with Nik Rabinowitz!) at the Two Oceans Aquarium on Wednesday 27 July, also in aid of Shark Spotters’ research. There’s more information about the event here.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Wishing winter away

Hi divers

Weekend dive plans

Sunday: Boat dives from Simon’s Town jetty to Photographer’s Reef and Roman Rock OR shore dives at Long Beach

I know we are barely past the halfway mark of winter, but the last few warm and pleasant days have got me wishing summer was here.

Some swell and lots of south easterly wind are in the forecast for Saturday, so Sunday will be the better option for diving. We will aim for a later start to see how well False Bay fares during Saturday’s onslaught. If we decide to launch the boat it will be from the Simon’s Town Jetty at 9.30 and 12.00 and the most likely sites will be Photographer’s Reef and Roman Rock.

If the conditions aren’t boat-worthy on Sunday, we’ll shore dive at Long Beach.

An app for beach lovers

Shark Spotters, who do pioneering beach safety work and shark research in Cape Town, are crowdfunding a mobile app which will provide information on beach and surf conditions, shark and other marine animal sightings, and whether the Fish Hoek exclusion net is currently deployed. The app will be available free of charge. Watch this video for more information about the app, and give your support by donating here!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Bookshelf: One Breath

One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits – Adam Skolnick

One Breath - Adam Skolnick — One Breath – Adam Skolnick

This is the book on freediving that has long needed to be written. Structured, well researched, and focused, you must to read it if you have an interest in the sport. It is the best book by far that I, a rank outsider to freediving, have read on the subject.

Adam Skolnick centres his narrative on two figures: Nick Mevoli, who died during a dive in 2013, and William Trubridge, world record holder and organiser and around whom the small freediving community seems to pivot.

Skolnick explains the development of the sport, and narrates the life of Nick Mevoli, attempting to unravel the obsession that freediving engenders in its participants. With detailed descriptions of freedving competitions, such as the Vertical Blue series of events, this is the closest I have gotten to understand the mechanics of the sport, and the impulse that drives its participants. There is no attempt to airbrush the physical toll exacted by freediving or to gloss over the dangers of the sport.

Here’s an illuminating review of the book:

The dreadful (and unnatural) toll of freediving

Get a copy here (South Africa), here or here.

If you’re interested in freediving, read (with caution) The Last Attempt and The Dive, watch The Big Blue, and also watch this video of William Trubridge diving to 100 metres, which is utterly transcendent.

Article: National Geographic on great white sharks

The July 2016 issue of National Geographic contains an article entitled “Why Great White Sharks are Still a Mystery to Us“, and luckily for those of us who don’t have approximately $100 to drop on a magazine (I exaggerate, and it’s probably worth it), it’s available online as well. It’s an excellent explanation for why and how technology is being used to study these remarkable creatures.

The great white shark is the ocean’s iconic fish, yet we know little about it—and much of what we think we know simply isn’t true. White sharks aren’t merciless hunters (if anything, attacks are cautious), they aren’t always loners, and they may be smarter than experts have thought. Even the 1916 Jersey Shore attacks famously mentioned in Jaws may have been perpetrated by a bull shark, not a great white.

We don’t know for sure how long they live, how many months they gestate, when they reach maturity. No one has seen great whites mate or give birth. We don’t really know how many there are or where, exactly, they spend most of their lives. Imagine that a land animal the size of a pickup truck hunted along the coasts of California, South Africa, and Australia. Scientists would know every detail of its mating habits, migrations, and behavior after observing it in zoos, research facilities, perhaps even circuses. But the rules are different underwater. Great whites appear and disappear at will, making it nearly impossible to follow them in deep water. They refuse to live behind glass—in captivity some have starved themselves or slammed their heads against walls.

The photographs are by Brian Skerry. It’s worth checking out. Read the article here, or pick up a copy of the magazine when you see it on the shelves.

And for the inveterate shark fans and those who want to pursue some further education, it’s not too late to sign up for the Shark MOOC on edX that started on 28 June. Click here to join in.

Bookshelf: Pristine Seas

Pristine Seas: Journey to the Ocean’s Last Wild Places – Enric Sala

Pristine Seas - Enric Sala — Pristine Seas – Enric Sala

Those of us who will likely never visit Kingman Reef and the Line Islands in person should be grateful for Enric Sala. Marine ecologist and National Geographic Explorer in Residence, Sala brings the same substance, urgency and gravitas to his underwater photography that Thomas Peschak does. He can truly be called a conservation photographer, having left a career as a research scientist to work on saving the ocean’s wild places.

Sala’s current project is to explore and protect the last pristine marine ecosystems on the planet, and to this end he has led expeditions to comparatively untouched locations around the world. This book documents ten of those expeditions, from tropical to Arctic waters. Rich with photographs, contextualised with beautiful National Geographic-style maps, it is a delight.

Read an interview with Sala here, and an article about the man by author Juliet Eilperin can be found here.

Get a copy here (South Africa), here or here.

If this is right up your alley, check out Blue Hope as well.