Hi Team! I apologize about our lack of team updates in recent months. With both personal and professional things piling up the monthly updates slipped through the cracks. We are back on track now.
Next update: The end of April.
UPDATE POSTS:
First things first, as many of you know we welcomed Nick Brilliande as one of our Lanai ambassadors. Nick helped the HURC team tremendously during our outreach to Lanai last year. His contact information is now listed in the contacts post. A big official welcome to Nick!
The individual certificates people receive after submitting a whale shark has been revamped. We plan to do this yearly. It gives our whale shark rockstars out there a fun way to stay engaged and interested in submitting sightings.
We are submitting lots of grants to get the satellite tagging moving along. We are looking to team up with local schools and add an education aspect to the project. Our goal would be to start doing that this year. We will keep you updated on that if/when the grants start to roll in.
We are teaming up with Dr. Melanie Hutchinson who researches Oceanic White Tip, if you know if anyone with OWT photos or videos we would love to see them. We are establishing a database and methods for ID-ing these sharks as well.
As you all know from previous updates, HURC received a grant from the PADI foundation to look at the morphometrics of whale sharks around our islands. In January, with the help of the on-water Kona community, our team was able to test out our photogrammetry rig on a whale shark. A summary video is available here: https://www.facebook.com/hawaiiuncharted/videos/762519787464271/
The Hawaii Brewery Running Series events are coming up. We are the non-profit beneficiary for their Ola Brew, Honolulu Beer Works, and Lanikai Brewing Company runs. Spread the word! The dates will be listed below. Kim Wood will be helping us out at the Oahu events, thanks in advance Kim!
It has been a busy few months for submissions, partly explaining our lack of updates. As of 03/21/2019, we are up to 164 individuals! Keep your eyes out on social media, even if they don't have underwater photos, we can still use the information of a sighting as a data point.
I am going to be focusing on fundraisers for the end of year. If you have ideas, let me (Maria) know. I may be reaching out to each one of you individually for help as well.
The 5th International Whale Shark Conference is coming up in May. Our team submitted an abstract and it was accepted! We will be giving an oral presentation to the international scientific community at the end of May in Exmouth, WA!
UPCOMING EVENTS:
March 23, 2019 - Ola Brew - Hawaii Brewery Running Series - 10am
March 30, 2019 - Honolulu Beer Works - Hawaii Brewery Running Series - 10am
March 31, 2019 - Lanikai Brewing Co. - Hawaii Brewery Running Series - 9am
May 28 - June 1, 2019 - International Whale Shark Conference
Hi Team!
Thanks for all your hard work. Travis and I will be heading to Oahu on Saturday for the weekend to take part in the Hawaii Brewery Running Series. If you have contacts on Oahu, please send them our way!
I have a short update for January, February and March (so far) on sightings. For January we had a total of 13 sightings, including 9 that had images we could use for matching, adding 7 new individuals to our catalog. In February we had 15 total sightings with 11 new individuals. We still have a few days left, but so far, in March we have had 10 sightings with 8 new individuals added to the catalog. We are currently…
Let me know if I can help with any fundraisers. I'll try to think up some ideas too.