Camera traps tender an extraordinary view into the secret life of wild fauna , and have given us an unparalleled glimpse into the world of many rare and endangered metal money . Now ateam of marine biologistsare starting to use them to spy on the creatures that live not in rain forest or on batch , but beneath the wave .
The researchers , led by Stony Brook University , plan on setting up underwater tv camera bunker in 400 placement around the ball over a menstruation of three years , making the projection the largest - ever effort to survey the macrocosm ’s shark populations .
A multidisciplinary project , it has two master objectives : The first , " to read what feature film of a coral reef influence how many sharks and beam either last around or shoot the breeze that reef , " Dr Demian Chapman , who ’s leading the study , told IFLScience . The second target , Chapman tot up , is to learn how shark actually influence the health of the coral reef . " So we require to inquire dubiousness like : Do coral Witwatersrand with a lot of sharks recover faster from disturbance than reefs without shark ? "
They also drive to improve our understanding of the preservation status of chondrichthyan fishes – shark and their congeneric . In a late revaluation of the animal , theInternational Union for Conservation of Natureconcluded that while a whopping30 % of sharksare at risk of extinction , there simply is n’t enough data to assess 46 % of specie . TheGlobal Finprintproject point to change this .
4 reefs and a funeralfromGlobal FinPrintonVimeo .
“ This global survey will fill up in datum gaps that could help governments , fisheries and others well sympathize and economise these important predators,”explainsMike Heithaus , who is part of the external team involved in the study . With late estimates that around100 million sharksare being killed every twelvemonth , it ’s important that we understand how the animal fit in with their ecosystem , and how their removal is pretend it .
The researcher are going to place cameras that have a bait cage confiscate on the ocean floor . If there are any sharks or shaft of light within the neighborhood of the apparatus , which is called a baited remote underwater TV ( BRUV ) , they should smell and then float toward the come-on , activating the tv camera . BRUV then bunk for a full 80 minutes and records whatever ocean critters come in to investigate the food for thought , allowing the team to standardize the results across every land site they try .
The habit of the BRUVs is a meaning alteration in centering from most late studies that have value shark populations in the past , which normally rely on physically get the Pisces the Fishes on wrinkle or track them with tag . This way , the sharks in effect trance themselves – only on tv camera .
All the data will then be made available through an loose - access database , let in information on coinage concentration , habitats and diversity trends . The researchers go for that this will mean policy Godhead and conservation management team will have all the necessary data at deal when forming plans and initiatives to identify and protect priority habitat .
