Participants from Palm Springs Community Middle School enjoyed a day studying sharks and marine life in Palm Beach County waters with Florida International University scientists.
EXPEDITION DETAILS
March 11, 2025
Palm Beach County, FL
Mia Gabb
Sophia Hemsi
William Sample
Davon Strickland
Syra Tanchin
All sharks were fished for, caught, studied and released for research purposes under Florida permits held by Florida International University scientists.
The crew of R/V ANGARI welcomed students and faculty from Palm Springs Community Middle School for an exciting day on the water with scientists from Florida International University’s (FIU) College of Arts, Sciences and Education. During their Coastal Ocean Explorers: Sharks expedition, participants took part in deploying and retrieving drumlines, specialized gear used for shark research, and set up a baited remote underwater video system (BRUVS) survey to observe marine life in action.
To start the day, students assembled and deployed a BRUVS to capture footage of marine life in the Lake Worth Lagoon. After letting it soak for an hour, participants recovered the BRUVS, and later in the day they had the opportunity to review the footage with the research team. The exciting footage depicted a red cushion sea star (Oreaster reticulatus), nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) and southern stingray (Hypanus americanus). It was only the second time that participants on a Coastal Ocean Explorers expedition captured BRUVS footage of a southern stingray and a first for the red cushion sea star!
During the expedition, participants also assembled and deployed drumlines to fish for sharks. Their efforts were rewarded when they caught a 7.4 ft bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas). This was the first time that a bull shark had been caught inshore during a Coastal Ocean Explorers: Sharks expedition! Students observed and learned alongside the scientists as they performed an efficient shark workup, which included taking several measurements, collecting tissue samples, tagging the shark with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Cooperative Shark Tagging Program (NOAA CSTP) identification tag and implanting an acoustic tag. This was only the second shark acoustically tagged during a Coastal Ocean Explorers expedition. This type of tag will allow scientists to better track and understand the animal’s movements. Over the course of the day, the hardworking participants deployed a record-setting 28 drumlines in the Lake Worth Lagoon! It was a momentous day for the Palm Springs STEM Rays.
This expedition was made possible with funding from the Palm Beach International Boat Show Gives Back grant program.
CHIEF SCIENTIST
Will Sample is a Ph.D. candidate in the Marine Community and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Florida International University. His current research uses both long-term historical datasets and newer methods, such as high-resolution accelerometry, to study the movement and behavioral ecology of juvenile bull sharks. He specifically focuses on the way these sharks may be transporting nutrients across habitat boundaries, how they may be optimizing their movements to save energy and what the long-term implications of different behaviors they specialize in may be. Will’s research in the Florida Everglades studying the ways sharks move through this crucial ecosystem is important for conservation and informing habitat restoration and management efforts. Will earned a B.S. in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Florida Atlantic University in 2018 and has lived all throughout Florida for most of his life, from Jacksonville to Jupiter to the Keys. He is passionate about community outreach and education, particularly regarding Florida’s natural habitats, and currently serves as lead scientist for ANGARI’s Palm Beach County based Coastal Ocean Explorers: Sharks program aboard R/V ANGARI.
