Research Fund 23/01 :: Francisco Serra Take #2
June 5, 2023
(Second) largest shipment ever :: World Oceans Day
June 8, 2023
This application for funding from Buddhi Maheshika, a young researcher from Sri Lanka, was incredibly special for multiple reasons.
First and foremost, this young lady requested funds for traveling to the American Elasmobranch Society conference, which immediately resonated with our founder, since he began his career at an AES meeting, held in Los Angeles back in June 1994, nearly 30 years ago.
What a thrill it was to walk amongst all the giant names in Elasmobranch Science and being able to chat with brilliant scientists such as Don Nelson, Samuel Gruber, Peter Klimley, Greg Cailliet, John Morrissey, Kazunari Yano, Ken Goldman, Jeff Carrier, Jack Musick, Chris Lowe, Brad Wetherbee, and so many others.
The second reason this grant was so special to us is because Buddhi is a co-founder of Ocean Rosy, an organization established in August 2022, with the aim of conserving the marine environment and its species, with a special focus on sharks and rays. This too resonated with our founding of the Portuguese Association for the Study and Conservation of Elasmobranchs, back in January 1997!
Finally, this grant drove us over the 100.000 euros line, which is a very special mark to us, particularly because not all of those euros were donated by our amazing clients and the percentage of 100% philantropic donations from Flying Sharks is now increasing daily.
For all these reasons above, we simply couldn’t say no to Buddhi, so we sent her 500 euros and asked her to please extend our warmest regards to all the fine individuals at AES that helped our careers in Elasmobranch research soar throughout these last three decades.
