PHILIPSBURG:--- Recently the Nature Foundation installed three new acoustic receivers to research the movement patterns of sharks in Sint Maarten waters. Due to Hurricane Irma, seven receivers were lost, stagnating the Foundation’s research into shark abundance and movement patterns around the island, a project which started in October 2015. This telemetry study is part of the ‘Save our Sharks’ project and executed in collaboration with scientist Dr. Erwin Winter from Wageningen Marine Research of the Wageningen University. It is also part of a larger shark study around Saba, St Eustatius and the Saba Bank and funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery.
“Due to additional funding made available from the Wageningen Marine Research, we were able to replace three acoustic receivers on the dive sites the Bridge, the Gregory, and Carib Cargo. Four sharks are tagged with small electronic devices (acoustic transmitters) on St Maarten, these transmitters are sending out a unique signal continuously and when it is within 500-800m to a receiver, the shark is detected! This research will provide use essential information about movement patterns of sharks and the size of areas they use, which will help to better protect these significant species and understand their behavior,” stated Nature Foundations projects Officer Melanie Meijer zu Schlochtern.
The foundation will look into additional funding to replace another four acoustic receivers to extend the study back to its original size. Previous results of the study already suggested very local movement patterns of Caribbean Reef Sharks and Nurse Sharks and movement patterns of tagged juvenile tigers sharks still need to be analyzed.
Scuba divers are asked to keep their distance to the installed receivers and their setup, in order to be able to collect data successfully.