eShark — Powered by people, like YOU!
eShark is the flagship project of eOceans Science through capacity sharing. Using millions of observations and insights from divers, snorkelers, and other local experts around the world, we have asked and answered important questions that have informed policies to save sharks.
We’ve done a lot together, already!
eShark was born from many collaborative projects — mostly with the dive tourism industry. These include:
eShark Thailand in partnership with Shark Guardian
and others were initiated by different tourism industries that depend on sharks — tourists fly around the world just to see sharks!
When populations started to disappear, it was concerning for not only the health of the species but the marine ecosystems and tourist economies that depend on them. So they reached out to Dr. Ward-Paige and set up community log books to collect data, and then co-interpreted and published together. Fiji alone sampled 592 sites, and reported 146,000 shark observations on 30,000 dives which allowed for the first description of spatial patterns of the 11 shark species studied to be created. This work lays the foundation for future scientific research, conservation, and management design and evaluation and creates a baseline to monitor the health of future populations in the face of pressures such as climate change, fishing, management decisions, etc.
To learn more about the power of collective observations and the importance of local involvement, check out this case study of sharks in Thailand and this paper on the global evaluation of shark sanctuaries.
Goals
Continuation of eshark Thailand & the Great Fiji Shark Count
eShark was created to continue this work globally. The aim is to monitor the health of shark populations as well as known and emerging threats, and to stimulate new questions for researchers to investigate.
Education
The eOceans platform generates analytics that are publicly available to all Team members to promote ocean literacy surrounding the health of shark populations and the threats they face so that we can work towards making more informed decisions and creating more sustainable practices, together.
Collaboration
Team members are encouraged to be active in the ‘COMMENTS’ channel to share their interpretation of the patterns. This is a crucial component to the success of the project to ensure best practices are being used and that local knowledge from stakeholders, rightsholders, and communities is incorporated.
changing how ocean science is done
The ocean is changing fast, and with that comes a plethora of known and unknown consequences to species, communities, and economies around the globe. This project is proving that ocean science no longer has to, nor can it afford to, take a siloed approach to questions and lag years to decades behind society and ocean change. The real-time analytics, automated pdf reports, disseminated results and open space for communication between locals, stakeholders, rightsholders and Team admins provided by the eOceans software enables researchers to stretch their resources (ie. grants, time, etc.) far past previous limits, allowing discoveries to be made faster, with less cost and more consideration towards the communities involved.
How can you get involved as on ocean explorer?
Download the eOceans app and join the eShark Team to share your observations and work with us to better understand the health of these incredible species and the threats they face. The ocean is massive and we need to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to uncover patterns and assess threats, so It cannot be overstated - YOUR OBSERVATIONS MATTER.
Join the Team!
JOIN eSHARK TO help sharks today!
Download the FREE app to start contributing to eShark, today!
Contact us to get your own Team started on the eOceans platform (christine@eOceans.co).