Achievement Report Curieuse October 2017

Report Title
The Sharks Have Arrived on Curieuse

Objective
Long Term: Increase scientific knowledge and baseline data on the health of ecosystems on Curieuse
Island.
Short Term: Undertake lemon shark tagging project in Q1, Q3, Q4.

Summary
Sicklefin Lemon Sharks are the focus of one of our projects to increase scientific knowledge and
baseline data on the health of our ecosystems on Curieuse Island. The 2017/18 shark pup season
began in October, and since then we have caught, measured and tagged dozens of pups. Volunteers
and staff have been deploying nets, and our current season record is 18 sharks caught in one 2 hour
period.

Report
Curieuse Island is a unique place to live and work with its diversity of habitats, each home to
important, yet threatened species. One of our long term objectives is to increase scientific
knowledge and baseline data on the health of ecosystems on the island. Sicklefin Lemon Sharks are
one of the species which regulates our ecosystems and controls populations. Adult Lemon Sharks
come into the Turtle Pond area to give birth to live young usually between September and
December, giving birth to 1-13 pups every two years. By monitoring the shark pup population we are
aiming to learn how many juvenile individuals are in the population, how fast they grow, where they
live and how many breeding adults use the waters around Curieuse. These feed into increasing
overall knowledge about the species and promoting informed fisheries management.

Our short term objective of undertaking our lemon shark tagging project takes place year round, but
with a special focus during the last quarter of the year. The current 2017/18 shark season started on
09/10/17, with the first female caught. Since then we have consistently caught sharks every survey,

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with the current season records of 14 sharks caught in one session on the 30th September, 15 caught
on the 6th November, and 18 caught on the 8th November.

During a normal sharking survey we use a combination of strategies, dependent on tide, and
volunteer/staff numbers. We have two gill nets (18m and 25m long), a seine net (90m), a cast net
and a number of dip nets. Each of these methods is dependent on the group of volunteers and staff
working as a team.

Three volunteers during September were Lemon Shark and Turtle Programme volunteers, allowing
them to get more hands on and involved with these surveys. Interns and long term volunteers have
also been given more responsibility, assisting with the capture, work up and release of sharks.

In the first of our mammoth shark sessions, in which 14 pups were caught, we used the Pats Pool
area of the pond. By blocking off any possible escape routes with the nets we were able to catch
everything in there. The first few hit the seine net, and then as the tide was falling, one of the gill
nets was walked towards a corner of the pool where the falling tide had created a channel. It was at
this point that 7 sharks hit the net in rapid succession, and it was all hands on net to capture and
work them up quickly and efficiently. Data was collected from each shark including length, weight,
sex, state of umbilical scar, a small sample of DNA, and a PIT tag (microchip) inserted. Our volunteers
really excelled at working under pressure.

Of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 14 is the key goal we are working towards with our
sharking project; to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for
sustainable development. Data from this season will be added to our previous data, informing
important management decisions in the Curieuse Marine Protected Area.

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