GOALS: 

• Improve current understanding of blue shark spatial ecology and habitat use in the Azorean EEZ and the wider Atlantic Ocean, with focus on the adult male blue shark population typically present in the Azores during the summer period, overlapping with the shark diving season.
• Raise global awareness towards shark conservation, sustainable management and promote ocean literacy in the Azorean communities and schools to value local natural resources. We will seek to involve local NGOs to produce education and literacy contents/activities for schools and help with outreach program in the Azores. 
• Understand the potential impact and value of hypothesized shark sanctuary in the Azores EEZ on the resilience and conservation of blue shark populations in the Atlantic. 
• Promote common platform for the local shark diving industry stakeholders under the overarching goal of an Azores blue shark sanctuary towards the sustainable management and conservation of shark populations and social/economic blue prosperity. It’s agreed that the local shark diving industry stakeholders will be invited to participate, either by sponsoring directly or by proposing third party donors.  
• We will seek to find and support a PhD program for a young scientist using data and resources from Megalodon.

Jorge Fontes

(Marine Biologist, PhD)

Contributions: 

ProWin ProNature foundation will donate 150.000 € to IMAR, to be paid in total with the signature of this MOU. Funds will be used to support the projects activities, including the acquisition of a minimum of 30 satellite tags, fund satellite transition fees and tagging related expeditions. Five percent (5 %) of the total funding will be retained by IMAR to support administrative costs and infrastructure associated with the project management.

IMAR/Okeanos – will coordinate the scientific activities, including tagging, tag acquisition, data acquisition and data curation, student tutoring and the development of minimally invasive tagging methods. The scientific coordination is to be led by Dr. Jorge Fontes. In addition, IMAR/Okeanos will:

• Provide scientific and activity report at the end of the project. While the project duration is scheduled to be 12 months, both parts can agree to extend the project duration,
• Develop minimally invasive tagging methods,
• Provide financial management services and logistic support, 
• Promote the engagement of the shark diving industry stakeholders in the Azores. Shark Diving companies, from the Azores, will be formally invited to contribute, either as co-sponsors (funding additional tags) or partners for outreach and education,
• share satellite tag locations from tagged sharks to the main sponsor (ProwinProNature), co-sponsors and partners,
• Host project sponsors to observe tagging activities and promote science and conservation on dedicated tagging expeditions. There will be a minimum of one dedicated expedition per week over a six week period during the summer tagging period,
• Engage a collaboration with local NGOs towards the dissemination of the project´s results and provide public outreach and ocean literacy support  
  

Calendar and planning: 

Sponsor hosting tagging expedition will be concentrated in July and August (total 6 weeks), when blue sharks are typically most abundant and large males are available. This is a season and a population segment understudied and possibly most relevant for the shark diving sustainability. Depending on the availability of sharks and weather constrains this timeline may be reviewed. 

There was a relevant delay regarding the delivery of the satellite tags due to the need to find an alternative to the traditional carriers (FedEx and USPS) which ceased to deliver to the Azores. In the end it was necessary to contract a specialized agency to carry the tags all the way from Washington to Terceira island and then from there, by boat to Faial island because SATA Air does not transport equipment with LiPo batteries.



In order to mitigate the impact of the delay on the outreach plans, we carriedout the scheduled MEGALODON dive guest blue shark tagging expeditions to using the non invasive Ecodive towed tags, until the satellite spot tags were delivered. 

Method : 

Tagging protocol: 

• The EcodivePWN science team will develop minimally invasive attachment methods to deploy long-term towed satellite tags (wild life computers)
• Tags will be deployed using freediving 
• Tagging expeditions should focus mainly in the Faial-Pico channel area and the Condor marine reserve
• All tagging activities are exclusively executed by trained scientists. Sponsor guests can observe and take part in the tagging expeditions after they have been briefed and trained to perform tasks such as photo ID, photogrammetry (sizing and sexing the animals), record behaviour and document the expedition (photo/video).

It was necessary to develop a special attachment method which was required to achieve long term attachment with minimal impact on the animal and could be deployed on free swimming animals, i.e., minimally invasive. It was also important that the minimally invasive method also looked benign in the eyes of MEGALODON guests that were observing the tagging in the water alongside the science team.

Blue shark

Devil Ray 

Whale Shark 

Preliminary Results: 

A total of XX trips to tag the Sicklefin devil rays, blue and whale sharks were carried between June and October 2021. The rays were tagged in Princess Alice bank, 45 nautical miles southwest Faial Island, and in Ambrósio bank, in Santa Maria Island. The whale sharks were tagged south/southwest of Santa Maria Island

Table 1. Summary of the tagging trips and tag deployment of 2021 season.

Table 2. Deployment summary of 2021 towed SPOTs by species, number of s (N), mean size (in cm) and sum of days at liberty (SDAL).