OCEARCH Docks at Working Waterfront Festival in New England

The ship and crew from OCEARCH are currently tied up at the dock in New Bedford, Ma during the annual Working Waterfront Festival. The research supported by OCEARCH can be seen on the series Shark Wranglers televised globally by History Channel. OCEARCH fieldwork involves the attracting, catching, tagging, and bio-sampling of sharks before they are released. The shark is monitored at all times under expert guidance and maintained on the platform by water over its gills. OCEARCH facilitates research by supporting leading researchers and institutions seeking to attain groundbreaking data on the biology and health of sharks, in conjunction with basic research on shark life history and migration. The researchers is supported aboard the M/V OCEARCH, a unique 126’ vessel equipped with a custom 75,000 hydraulic lift and research platform, which serves as both mothership and at-sea laboratory. Shark populations worldwide are under threat - sharks are being slaughtered at an unsustainable rate, many for a bowl of soup. This unsustainable harvest rate driven by the demand for shark fins, meat and other products puts not only sharks at risk, but also the entire balance of the ocean. Conserving sharks is a global conservation priority and devising successful conservation and management strategies is largely limited by our scientific knowledge on their biology and life history. Significant information is lacking with regard to the medium and long-range movement patterns of white sharks. Traditional research has focused on fine small-scale movements of white sharks within known aggregation sites. Gaining this previously unattainable information enables more effective shark and ocean conservation. Also, in an effort to protect the critical decline of bluefin tuna stocks, OCEARCH co-hosted a screening in the United States Capitol of the acclaimed documentary The End of the Line. Following the screening, a panel of experts, including OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer, discussed appropriate public policy responses to the decline of fish resources and transitioning to sustainable fisheries. Less than a week later the United States announced its support of a proposal to list Atlantic bluefin tuna under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) prohibiting international trade of the species.