A new online Shark Awareness Education training course has been launched. “Sharks continue to be misrepresented and badly portrayed in the media,” explains Alex Antoniou, Ph.D., course developer and co-founder of Fins Attached: Marine Research and Conservation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of sharks. “The Shark Awareness Education course helps individuals view sharks and the role they play in the marine ecosystem with a fresh eye focused on conservation.” Dr. Antoniou continues, “No other training program like this exists where someone can learn about sharks at their own pace, in a highly interactive format.”

Continue reading on Examiner at: http://www.examiner.com/scuba-diving-in-national/new-online-shark-awareness-program-for-scuba-divers-unveiled?CID=obinsite

View more videos at: http://nbcsandiego.com.

The scheme involves the equivalent of fingerprinting the animals, storing images of their unique dorsal fins on a database.

Once established tourists and fishermen would be able to access the information online, helping international shark groups to track the animals.

The University of Bristol is developing the software which experts hope will give them a unique insight into the species’ population and one day give them the truth on numbers of the animals and their movements.
It is hoped that the unparalleled record of the sharks and their territories could eventually help lift the lid on key behaviours never before witnessed – like great whites mating or giving birth.
Swiss marine biologist Michael Scholl, founder and director of the White Shark Trust, spent 10 years photographing over 1,500 great white’s using his ‘finprinting’ technique.
His detailed record of white shark observations – paired together with a dorsal fin ID for each animal – is the world’s biggest database ever recorded on great white’s and will be the basis for the new computer system.

See here for more:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7938316/Plan-to-fingerprint-every-Great-White-Shark.html

Lee Otten, a filmmaker and producer with Shoot the Breeze Productions in South Africa and has worked with Save Our Seas marine biologist Alison Kock and her husband Morne, to make this remarkable film on both Great Whites and Sevengills in Cape Town: See link below for a superb video on Great Whites and Sevengill sharks in South Africa: http://www.caretakers.co.za/film.php?id=1128

Check out this remarkable video taken by Chuck Patterson off of San Onofre State Beach, from a paddleboard.

This is from Chuck’s Vimeo site:

the day before I shot this video, I was SUP surfing with a couple friends and 2 sharks circled us for about 15 minutes. the next day, I decided to go back out at around the same time and take my GO PRO HD HERO camera (gopro.com) mounted on a 10 ft pole and do some exploring.

Sure enough within 5 minutes a 9 ft shark came out of no where and circled twice and slapped his tail on my board before disappearing. then a minute later a 7 ft young juvenile Great White swam circles around me for 12 minutes. It was an unreal experience that I will cherish forever

Sean van Sommeran of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation has pointed out that, if you look closely at the left side of the shark around minute 1:20, you can see a research tag implanted under the dorsal fin.

Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.

Global Shark Initiative

How It Works: http://theglobalsharkinitiative.ning.com/page/how-it-works