Look no more to the polls to figure out who’s ahead in this presidential race because NSU is predicting the winner by racing sharks.
NSU’s Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography tagged two shortfin mako sharks, named them Trump and Clinton and released them on Sept. 26, the day of the first presidential debate. The shark that travels the most miles before Nov. 1 will “predict” the outcome of the presidential race.
Matthew Johnston, an NSU graduate with a doctorate in marine biology and oceanography, runs the Shark Race to the White House website. Johnston said that the shark race was a way to get coverage for the school by leveraging the election and that the race is meant to be fun and not political.
“We want to spread awareness and get people interested in shark research and potentially raise some money to tag more animals and learn more about them,” he said.
Mahmood Shivji, professor of biological sciences and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Shark Research Center, has worked with shark research and conservation for 22 years. Shivji said it’s impossible to tell how far the Race to the White House sharks will travel in five weeks, but that it could be as little as 400 miles or as far as 2,000 miles.
The Shark Race to the White House is part of a larger worldwide shark tagging and research program. According to Shivji, NSU has been tracking some sharks for as long as three years. NSU’s study of the travelling patterns, or movement ecology, of sharks has been ongoing since 2008.
Researchers track a shark’s movement by attaching a tag to the dorsal fin of the shark and then releasing the shark. Every time the shark’s dorsal fin breaks the surface of the water, the tag sends a signal to a satellite, allowing researchers to track the location of the shark over long periods of time. Johnston said that he believes the program has tagged over 100 sharks, including mako sharks, tiger sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks and sand tiger sharks.
Johnston said that there are a lot of unknowns regarding mako shortfin sharks, like where they breed, where they migrate and where they feed.
“The tags we put on the sharks send a signal to a satellite many times per day, and then we can gather that data and figure out what’s going on with the population,” Johnston explained.
Shivji said that the shortfin mako shark is a close cousin of the white shark, and is one of very few fish that is warm-blooded. According to Shivji, mako sharks, which range from 6-13 feet long, can swim massive distances very quickly because of their high metabolic rate. Shivji said that over 20 percent of the mako sharks the program tags are caught by fisheries and killed.
“Sharks are targeted globally by many different fisheries, legal and illegal,” Johnston explained. “About 100 million sharks per year are killed…what we’re trying to do is by tagging these sharks is track their movements and hopefully provide management advice to different areas shark species are using.”
According to Johnston, sharks are persecuted around the world.
“People hear the word shark, and they’re afraid of them,” Johnston said. “They don’t understand the role that sharks play in the ecosystem. A lot of people think that the only good shark is a dead shark, which is simply not the case. We’re hoping that by having people interested and going to the website and gaining some personal attachment to [the sharks]… We need to understand them in order to protect them.”
Shivji said that the Shark Race to the White house is a tongue-in-cheek way to have some fun while raising public awareness.
“It’s a fun way to reach people and bring attention to the animal,” Shivji said. “And at the same time, because of the [shark] mascot, it also brings outside attention to NSU.”
To see how far the Clinton and Trump sharks have traveled, visit cnso.nova.edu/sharktracking/presrace. To see more shark tracks, visit cnso.nova.edu/sharktracking.
Photo 1
Caption: A satellite-tagged shortfin mako shark shortly after release.
Credit: G. Schellenger
Photo 2
Caption: The path of shark 1-NSU, which was tracked for 13.5 months, travelling nearly 12,000 miles.
Credit: Guy Harvey Research Institute, NSU
