Shark Researcher Receives NSF Award

Nick Whitney, '00, Funded for Three-Year Project

Posted Wednesday, April 30, 2003
 

By Jake Weber

As a boy, Jackson native Nicholas Whitney began studying sharks, he says, “because [on family vacations] I was always afraid of the water -- of being eaten by a shark, to be more specific. I started reading about sharks to look how I might avoid them, and became fascinated and totally hooked on sharks.”
 

This fascination with sharks has become, for Whitney, a promising career as a shark researcher.  Now a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Whitney has just been awarded a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship, for shark research.  This prestigious grant will provide a stipend for three full years of Whitney’s doctoral studies, as well as additional funds for research expenses.

Nick Whitney, '00, prepares to measure and tag a blacktip reef shark as part of a captive growth study at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.  Photo courtesy of Nick Whitney.

The whitetip reef shark, focus of Whitney’s research, is found throughout the tropical Pacific, from the east coast of Africa to Central America.  While this is one of the most commonly encountered sharks, little is known about its life and behavior.   

The shark is remarkable for what it doesn’t appear to do:  move about much.  Most of its day is spent lying in caves, and shark researchers commonly believe the whitetip reef shark doesn’t migrate or travel over large areas. 

“It’s an enigma as to how these sharks have gotten such a broad distribution [across the Pacific] when they don’t seem to go anywhere,” says Whitney, who will spend the next three years trying to explain just how, when, and where whitetip reef sharks do move.
 

Whitney surgically implants an ultrasonic transmitter tag into the

belly of a whitetip reef shark. Sharks go into a sleep-like state when turned upside down, and this makes surgery quick and painless. Photo courtesy of Nick Whitney.

To answer these questions, Whitney is using a three-pronged approach.  The first part of his research is devoted to photographing individual wild sharks in the open ocean.  Whitetip reef sharks have distinctive and unique spot patterns, “like a fingerprint,” says Whitney.  Because individual sharks can be identified from their markings, Whitney is developing a photo database of sharks, utilizing photos taken by recreational divers from the community as well as a few research assistants. Data on when and where sharks are sighted helps Whitney determine how long sharks stay in a given area, and how far they move.

Whitney also spends several days each month catching and tagging sharks with electronic transmitters.  These transmitters allow Whitney to follow the shark from a boat, and they also relay information to several receivers placed in the ocean. This gives Whitney detailed information on the movements of individual sharks.

So far, Whitney’s early data suggest that the “homebody” sharks are more active than previously assumed.  “We’ve had two sharks that have been spotted more than five miles away from where they were captured.  That movement of over five miles is close to the longest distance ever recorded for this species.”
 

Whitney tracks a shark tagged with an ultrasonic transmitter.  Photo courteys of Nick Whitney.

Knowing how far an individual shark swims, however, is only one piece of the puzzle.  Whitney also collects and analyzes genetic information on caught sharks, to see how closely the far-flung Pacific populations are related.   “Do sharks in Hawaii swim to Panama and Costa Rica, and if they do, how often?” asks Whitney.  “Genetics will tell us whether these populations are intermixed now, or if they’ve been separated for thousands of years."

“Shark populations worldwide are in decline, mainly because of overfishing,” says Whitney, explaining the need for understanding the migration and behavior of this little-understood species.  “In order to manage shark populations, you have to know … whether animals in different regions are part of the same population.  If sharks in one area are mixing with sharks in another area, it won’t help to implement conservation policies in just one region.  You have to manage both areas.”

Living in Hawaii and spending his days on a boat, it comes as no surprise that Whitney loves his work.  “It’s great when you discover something new that a lot of[researchers didn’t think was true and your research proves them wrong,” he enthuses.  The thrill makes up for “the hours of boat maintenance, filling out forms and permit applications, learning how to operate the equipment.  There’s an incredible amount of toil that doesn’t show up on the Discovery Channel.”

 Aside from a lot of hard work, Whitney also credits Albion College for helping him get to where he is today. As an undergraduate at Albion, Whitney was a research assistant to Albion professor Jeff Carrier, whose work with Florida nurse sharks is regularly featured in National Geographic and on the Discovery Channel.  “Everything I know, I learned from Jeff,” Whitney says. 

He notes as well that Albion’s “great Biology department gave me the tools to excel in science, while all the professors at Albion College taught me to be a creative and independent thinker in general.”  Whitney attributes much of his research success to the fact that he saw an opportunity where previous researchers had seen a dead-end. “Most shark researchers have ignored whitetips in Hawaii because they aren’t easily caught on a hook and line. I looked at the number of divers who were seeing these sharks and saw an opportunity to get great data and involve the public in shark research….My experience at Albion taught me to think outside the box, to look for new ways of approaching old problems.”

-- Jake Weber

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