Meeting #22 Indonesia Trip Recap, Citizen Science Workshop & Pregnant Tiger Sharks
For our last meeting of 2024, we had a packed schedule and heard from the lucky FINstitute members who recently visited Raja Ampat for the Kalabia (Epaulette) Monitoring Experience with Elasmobranch Project Indonesia (EPI). We also had two presentations by Kristy Potgieter about Citizen Science and Photo ID, as well as hearing from Filippo Bocchi about gestational grounds of Tiger Sharks in the Indian Ocean.
Some highlights from their trip included:
Learning about the various surveying methods used by EPI to assess the health of coral and seagrass ecosystems
Catching, tagging and collecting data from epaulette sharks - they sampled up to 30 sharks in one day!
Challenges they overcame including bad weather conditions and long fieldwork hours - all in the name of science and international collaboration!
We would like to especially thank Faqih Akbar Alghozali, the project leader of EPI and his team for providing The FINstitute with this amazing opportunity!
Some highlights from Kristy Potgieter’s talk included:
We were fortunate to hear her sharing her Master’s research involving stingrays, photo ID and citizen science.
Learning that photo identification is a valuable tool in research, but must be met with sufficient quality assurance protocols in order to support research.
Sharing how a citizen science project was crucial in her global investigation of the occurrence of two species of blue-spotted stingray.
Some highlights from Filippo Bocchi’s talk included:
He zoomed in to share his research on pregnant tiger sharks in Fuvamulah.
How he and his team researched the first gestational grounds of tiger sharks in the Indian Ocean through ultrasound monitoring techniques
Learning about the unique reproductive strategy of tiger sharks known as “aplacental viviparity”.
Discussing the future of reproductive studies in sharks through intrauterine tags (or birth-alert-tags).
