Effective management of sharks starts with an understanding of their
population status, which will ultimately instruct their future
conservation. Unfortunately, many shark species are at
significant risk of unrecoverable decline, with some species having
declined to near extinction in recent years.
We believe that Citizen Science could hold the key to improving our
understanding and management of shark populations, whilst also
advancing community education.
Citizen science initiatives allow a network of volunteers, many of
whom may have no specific scientific training, to perform
research-related tasks, such as recording species observations
accumulated over time to reveal local trends. Our
collaborators at the University of Western Australia have shown that
Citizen Scientists can actually deliver better quality data on shark
populations than conventional acoustic tagging methods, which are
not only very costly, but also potentially harmful.
Our Citizen Science projects have been developed by internationally
recognised shark scientists to ensure that the data collected will
be of most use to the scientific community in improving the
management of shark populations worldwide. All of the data collected
from SOS Citizen Science projects will be used by researchers at the
University of Western Australia and published in internationally
recognised journals.
Become a Citizen Shark Scientist by taking part in our projects and you will be helping to provide crucial information to improve the management of shark populations worldwide.