91AV Marine Science innovation in the spotlight ahead of Shark Week premiere
James Sulikowski, Ph.D., professor in the 91AV’s , was featured in several newspaper and television reports about his cutting edge research on shark reproduction. The media attention came days before “Tiger Beach,” the premiere episode of “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel starring Sulikowski and University of Miami professor Neil Hammerschlag.
In the reports, Sulikowski discussed the research in the episode, which follows the journey of Sulikowski and Hammerschlag of the University of Miami as they travel to a region in the Bahamas where tiger sharks are known to congregate. Their team of researchers, including 2015 91AV Marine Sciences graduate Carolyn Wheeler, sets out to discover why so many tiger sharks gather there.
To study the sharks’ reproductive behavior, the team uses an ultrasound machine similar to the technology used on pregnant humans, which allows researchers, for the first time in history, to test sharks for pregnancy without killing them first. It’s a technique Sulikowski refined using spiny dogfish in the Gulf of Maine, which reporters and photographers from the Portland Press Herald and WCSH witnessed firsthand. “You can see, they really are quite beautiful,” Sulikowski said. “We learn so much from each look, but without hurting the mother or babies.”
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