(Slowly, we’re catching up on our late Research Fund posts… 😉

Elisabeth’s project, “Pelagic Pioneers: Expanding shark research in Boa Vista, Cabo Verde”, builds directly on the recent discovery of a multispecies shark nursery in Sal Rei Bay on the island of Boa Vista. This area already hosts newborn and juvenile sharks from several species, but the surrounding pelagic ecosystem is still largely unexplored.

Her approach combines gill-net monitoring, stereo-BRUVS deployments, structured local interviews, and seasonal underwater video systems to map shark and ray presence across habitats and seasons. By adding AI-assisted video analysis via SharkTrack, she will be able to scale up processing and extract much richer ecological patterns from long-term recordings.

The project stands out for blending traditional field ecology with modern computational tools and, importantly, for embedding local ecological knowledge from fishers and divers into the scientific framework. Together, these elements will help build one of the most complete baseline datasets for elasmobranchs in Boa Vista to date.

In a region where shark populations face mounting fishing pressure and habitat stress, this kind of baseline work is exactly what conservation decisions depend on.

So congratulations to Elisabeth — working in Cabo Verde armed with cameras, nets, and algorithms, ready to meet sharks on their own terms.

Just don’t let the sharks peer-review your field methods too aggressively.

The post Research Fund 25/05 :: Elisabeth Reuter appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Damn, that’s how late we are with our Research Fund posts, but we’re struggling to catch up!

At the time Elisa wrote to us explaining that ever since she first became interested in Marine Biology, sharks and rays were always at the very top of her list of dream animals to study. So, when the time came to choose both an internship and a dissertation for her Master’s degree, she decided to go all in and split the experience between two different projects to maximize the learning adventure!

For her dissertation, Elisa wanted to work with the mighty Nuno Queiroz and the prestigious CIBIO research group, studying the foraging behavior of blue sharks in the Azores. Sadly, she contacted the team halfway through Summer and missed the field season where the sharks were tagged, which left her craving for a more hands-on experience.

And that is exactly how she found herself heading to Sharklab-Malta between April and June 2024, where she finally got to put her “hands in the sharky dough”, as we scientifically call it around here.

But there’s more! Elisa also took the time to thank the professor who gave her those first contacts years ago, back in her undergraduate days, long before anyone could imagine she’d end up chasing blue sharks around the Atlantic Ocean. Apparently, even without realizing it, the professor became some sort of an inspirational marine biology mastermind figure in her life. Damn! those are big shoes to fill and, as you probably guessed, “the professor” is our esteemed founder.

With accommodation expenses reaching around 500 euros per month — plus flights — there’s absolutely no way we could let Elisa face this adventure alone, so we happily transferred her 590 euros to help her along the way.

Go Elisa! And remember: if you accidentally tag “the professor” instead of the sharks, please release him back into the wild unharmed, because none of us want to do his job, especially the 100+ emails per day!

:p

The post Research Fund 24/03 :: Elisa Estrada appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, but also some of the most threatened. Between warming oceans, destructive fishing practices, coral extraction, and climate change, many reefs are hanging on by a thread. Which is precisely why projects like this matter so much.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, local fishing communities in North Bali deployed artificial reef structures across more than 100 kilometers of coastline as part of a 7 million dollar Coral Restoration Programme supported by the Indonesian government. That sentence alone already sounded epic enough for us!

Now, researchers from the University of Sussex and the Creative Action Tank (CAT), together with local dive and fisher communities, are heading back to these restoration sites for the first large-scale post-deployment assessment. Their mission? To determine whether these artificial reefs are actually working and helping coral and fish communities recover.

The project will combine high-resolution imagery, 3D reef modeling, underwater cameras, ecoacoustics, fish diversity surveys, and community-based monitoring techniques to compare restored reefs with nearby natural systems. In simpler terms: lots of science, lots of diving, and hopefully lots of happy fish.

What we especially loved about this proposal was the strong focus on local community involvement. Training local dive and fisher groups to monitor reef recovery creates long-term conservation capacity that remains in place long after the researchers leave. That’s exactly the kind of impact we enjoy supporting.

Needless to say, we couldn’t possibly say no to this beautiful combination of coral reefs, community conservation, underwater technology, and good old-fashioned marine biology enthusiasm, so we happily transferred 250 euros to help support the project.

Best of luck to everyone involved and please send photos… preferably with colorful corals and giant fish schools!

🙂

The post Research Fund 25/02 :: Francesco Marzano  appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Sofia is deeply interested in sustainability and conservation, particularly in the breeding and protection of endangered marine species like seahorses, which Sea Life Weymouth is especially renowned for. During her internship, she hoped to learn more about aquarium husbandry, conservation programs, and the fascinating world of marine species breeding.

Like many young marine biology students chasing their dreams abroad, Sofia needed a little help covering her travel expenses from Portugal to England, so we simply couldn’t say no and transferred her 500 euros.

We wished Sofia the very best during her internship and hope she brought back lots of cool stories, photos… and maybe a British seahorse accent as well!

Go, Sofia! 🙂

The post Research Fund 25/05 :: Sofia Maia appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Graham is about to begin his professional practice in Sagres, Portugal, where he’ll be working on the photo-identification of cetaceans, but he also came to us with an even cooler idea… using drones to collect whale and dolphin blow samples for DNA analysis!

Yep. Science fiction stuff.

This methodology has already shown promising results in projects such as the eWhale program, allowing researchers to track biomarkers and gather valuable genetic information from individual animals without invasive techniques. Combined with more than a decade of photo-identification data, this could become a very powerful conservation tool for understanding cetacean populations.

Needless to say that, once we read the words “drones”, “DNA”, and “cetaceans”, there wasn’t much left to discuss, so we happily transferred Graham 300 euros to help support this project and get those flying whale snot collectors into action!

Go, Graham!

And remember: if the whales start demanding privacy rights after the DNA tests… we were never involved.

:p

The post Research Fund 24/04 :: Graham Patterson appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Gemma’s work focuses on using pelagic BRUVs (Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems) to study threatened sharks, particularly the Critically Endangered tope shark (Galeorhinus galeus), in and around Marine Nature Reserves.

Now, for those who aren’t familiar with BRUVs, imagine underwater GoPros baited with delicious fish snacks, quietly sitting there filming sharks doing sharky things without bothering them. Science can be beautiful sometimes!

The project will involve building three pelagic BRUV systems and carrying out dozens of deployments with the help of local recreational anglers, who’ll become citizen scientists for the cause. That means more data, more community involvement, and more people helping protect sharks instead of fearing them. Which sounds like a pretty good deal to us.

The collected footage will help assess whether current Marine Nature Reserves are actually doing their job protecting threatened shark species, while also creating baseline data for long-term conservation management.

Needless to say we couldn’t possibly say no to a project involving sharks, conservation, underwater cameras, and people willing to spend time at sea helping science, so we were delighted to contribute 1.000 euros towards Gemma’s research efforts.

Go, Gemma, and keep on rockin’! 🦈

The post Research Fund 25/05 :: Gemma Scotts appeared first on Flying Sharks.

#oops!

Her work tackles a big problem with an even bigger twist. While most studies focus on Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, she decided to dig deeper into something less obvious… what happens when the systems meant to protect marine life don’t actually work well together?

Focusing on coastal communities in Ghana’s Western Region, she explored the interaction between customary practices and statutory regulations. In simple terms: what local communities have always done versus what governments say should be done.

Through interviews with fishers, chief fishers, traders, NGOs, and Fisheries Commission officials, she uncovered a reality that won’t surprise anyone who’s worked in the field… things don’t always line up.

Her findings show that poor coordination, lack of resources, and a disconnect between national policies and local realities create “institutional voids” — gaps where conservation efforts quietly fall apart. Add economic pressure into the mix, and it becomes clear why rules are often ignored.

But here’s the good part.

Her research doesn’t just point out problems — it points to solutions. A more collaborative approach, where local knowledge is integrated into management strategies, could go a long way in protecting marine megafauna.

We also liked the practical recommendations, such as revising the Fisheries Act to clearly define protected species… because vague rules rarely protect anything.

All in all, this is exactly the kind of grounded, real-world research we like to support, so we sent her 300 euros to help move things forward and you may download Josephine’s MPhil thesis here.

Well done Josephine, and keep on rockin’!

The post Research Fund 24/01 :: Josephine Entsie appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Kathryn recently wrapped up her Ph.D., where she used drones (the good kind) to monitor enormous blacktip shark aggregations along the shoreline of Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico – sometimes numbering in the thousands. Not a bad office view.

Cabo Pulmo is one of the world’s great marine conservation success stories. After the local community made the bold move from fishing to ecotourism in the 1990s, fish biomass increased by more than 400%, and – surprise, surprise – the big predators came back.

Kathryn’s work has already delivered some jaw-dropping results, including the first documented cases of killer whales preying on sharks inside the park, followed by clear shifts in shark aggregation behaviour. This research has since evolved into Shark Watch (@sharkwatchbaja), a long-term monitoring program that trains and empowers local women to run drone-based shark surveys themselves. We love that part.

All data are shared directly with park authorities, helping guide conservation decisions at a time when Cabo Pulmo is facing growing pressure from nearby coastal development.

We were very happy to chip in 500 euros to help Kathryn take this work to the international stage and join the global shark science conversation.

Well done, Kathryn — and keep up the excellent work!

The post Research Fund 26/01 :: Kathryn Ayres appeared first on Flying Sharks.

Chiara has been working on Mediterranean pelagic sharks, focusing on the ecology, distribution, and population genomics of two absolute icons: the shortfin mako and the great white shark. She was accepted for an oral presentation at Sharks International, the world’s largest scientific conference dedicated entirely to elasmobranchs, which will take place this year in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

By the time the conference rolls around, Chiara will have completed her Ph.D. — which also means institutional funding will no longer be available. Attending this meeting is a key milestone at a critical moment, as she prepares to move into the postdoctoral phase of her career and bring Mediterranean shark research to a truly global audience.

Needless to say, this is exactly the kind of situation our Research Fund exists for, so we happily covered her conference registration by transferring 500 euros.

Go Chiara — and give those makos and white sharks the spotlight they deserve! 

The post Research Fund 26/01 :: Chiara Gambardella appeared first on Flying Sharks.

This year Issah reached out to us once more, as he is currently the team leader of “Ghana’s Elasmo Project”, which is pioneering the conservation of sharks and rays in Ghana. They are currently in the process of scaling up their efforts to execute groundbreaking research and conservation projects in Ghana.

Once Issah reached out to us seeking the support of the Flying Sharks Humanitarian Fund to support their work, we simply couldn’t help ourselves but to transfer Issah 1.500 euros!

The post Research Fund 25/05 :: Issah Seidu appeared first on Flying Sharks.