ELEUTHERA (BAHAMAS)-Scientisct of the Cape Eleuthera Institute are exploring the deep sea. An enormous variety of weird and wonderful creatures make the deep sea their home, including many species of sharks. In a new project they hope to discover more about deep sea sharks.
“About half of all known species of sharks make this cold, dark high pressure environment their home, and new deep water species are being described all the tim”, says Edd Brooks, CEI’s shark research and conservation program manager on Southern Fried Science.
“The issue we are currently facing is that basic information about the taxonomy, biology and ecology of these animals is virtually non-existent, yet they are already being harvested by commercial fisheries. The little we do know about deep water species is worrying, in that they are thought to be more sensitive to fishing pressure than all other fish – and look what we have managed to do their more robust shallow water cousins already. The worry is that in some areas, we are already be losing species before they can be described taxonomically.”
Since the deep sea is largely inaccessible by humans without submersibles, the research team* is utilizing an elegant solution: a specialized baited underwater video cameras called Medusa. Baited underwater video cameras are an increasingly common research tool or so-called“chum cams”.
Read more at Southern Fried Science.
See the video of the highlights of the project:
