Link to article: http://oceanspaces.org/community-group/citizen-science-oceanspaces/news/yukon-marine-life-survey-progress-report
The San Diego-based non-profit Ocean Sanctuaries was founded in 2014 to create and provide support for marine citizen science projects. The Sevengill Shark Identification Project was one of its first citizen science projects, begun in 2010 in response to anecdotal evidence that divers were seeing increasing numbers Sevengill sharks off the coast of San Diego. This made the species an ideal candidate for a long-term 5-10 year) population study.See here for more information: http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/2016/07/01/using-citizen-science-to-track-sevengill-sharks/
"It's important to remember because when divers record the species they encounter on a dive, this only documents the presence of the species of interest. However it is equally important to record the absence of certain species, like sharks. Today, sharks are largely absent in areas where they were once abundant. Providing data that illustrates where sharks are present and absent helps scientists establish baselines of shark populations."Shark Savers.org
Contribute to an ongoing citizen science study of Sevengill sharksOn-the-go convenience for shark citizen scientistsUpload shark photos directly from your phone to the Sevengill Shark ID Project database from your AndroidDownload the app here: http://smile.amazon.com/Ocean-Sanctuaries-Sevengill-Shark-Tracker/dp/B01EJ18X7W?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&ref=mas_ty
In March of 2014 another San Diego diver and I decided to form our own 501c3 non-profit group dedicated to promoting and supporting citizen science projects such as this one The Sevengill Shark ID Project is now the flagship citizen science project for Ocean Sanctuaries http oceansanctuaries org wordpress citizen-science-projects
Identifying Sevengill Sharks with Wildbook Authors 1 Barbara Lloyd Ocean Sanctuaries org 2 Michael Bear Ocean Sanctuaries org 3 Jason Holmberg Wildme org Abstract Our goal is to attempt the identification of Sevengill sharks Notorynchus cepedianus that may be returning to San Diego from year-to-year using the pattern recognition algorithm provided in Wildbook a web-based application for wildlife data management designed by Jason Holmberg Wildbook which has been successfully used to ID Whale Sharks Rhincodon typus by their spotting patterns 1 2 Sevengill sharks Notorynchus cepedianus are currently listed as Data Deficient DD on the IUCN Red List This assessment is based on the information published in the 2005 shark status survey Fowler et al 2005 3 The genesis of this project was the apparent increase of encounters and sightings reported by divers with this species in the San Diego area from 2009 to the present to provide a long-term population dynamics study to examine the possible reason for this as well as to provide a baseline study for future researchers For specifics on our methodology please see here http sevengillsharksightings org our-methodology-introduction 1 http www whaleshark org 2 http www wildme org wildbook doku php 3 http marinebio org species asp id 1521 Topic Areas Best Practices Design Implement Manage CitSci Projects Submission Format Talk 15min