Sharks on the line: Part 3 - Sharing the oceans
March 21, 2025 at 2:00 AM EDT
Sharks are more sought-after than ever. Yet, recreational anglers have become increasingly irate toward these species, complaining that too many of them are eating their hooked catch. Meanwhile, the diving industry says they are more valuable alive than dead. In Part III of this three-part series, The Marjorie journeys across the state of Florida exploring a crucial question: Where do sharks fit into Florida’s future?
This story was funded by the Schooner Foundation as well as readers like you.
David Shiffman, bedecked in a skipper’s hat, stands before a boat full of what he calls “shark-ophiles.” The scientists and students aboard are clad in shark-patterned leggings and hammerhead tattoos, and the rest of the group are everyday people eager to catch a glimpse of their favorite animal.
“We’re going fishing, but we’re going fishing for science,” Shiffman announces to the non-scientists, most of whom paid to participate in this shark-tagging excursion. All of the money will be used to support public school students who want to learn more about being a shark scientist.
David Shiffman orients a group on a shark-tagging trip in July 2024. (973x646, AR: 1.5061919504643964)
This research vessel, the Garvin, is responsible for taking University of Miami’s Field School scientists and students from its Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science out on about two to five shark-fishing trips each week to collect as much data on as many sharks as possible. Then, the data will be used to inform a myriad of research projects focused on specific species and larger trends in shark science.
“The samples and the data that you’re helping us to collect today are going to support real science to get published in scientific journals,” Shiffman continues. “It gets presented at conferences. It helps influence policy at the state, federal, and sometimes international scale. So you’re doing real science today.”
The Garvin’s daily average is two sharks. But on this day, 2.5 miles offshore from Key Biscayne, the team catches seven: three nurse sharks, one bull, one lemon, one Caribbean reef, and one massive tiger shark.
The process is well-rehearsed. Gloved hands cut into frozen chunks of bonito and barracuda to use as bait, which are secured on large circle hooks that won’t get caught in the shark’s gills or throat. The team uses a modified drum line to cast their lines, which are weighed down by a 50-pound “drum” that sits on the seafloor. The hooks are attached to thick fishing line, which is attached to rope, which is attached to thicker rope.
“Drop’s away, drop’s away!” one crew member announces after chucking the weighted bait into the water. Then, the team lets out all the rope and hauls the attached buoy overboard.
“Float’s away, float’s away!”
“All clear, all clear!”
Hammerheads are especially vulnerable to post-catch mortality because of their high stress levels, but all sharks are sensitive. To keep them calm, the team inserts a PVC-pipe pump into the shark’s mouth to let ocean water run over its gills, allowing it to breathe while the scientists take measurements, blood samples, and fin clippings for genetic sampling as well as tag them and check for parasites.
The Field School team collects data from a 14-foot tiger shark near Miami, Florida. (971x648, AR: 1.498456790123457)
Seeing a 14-foot tiger shark just a few feet away is awe-inspiring. Bright turquoise water laps around its massive girth, making its leopard-patterned skin glisten in the sun.
“Blood!” a team member yells, handing a vial of maroon liquid to a colleague. “Copepods on body,” another announces, a spare shark tag sticking out of her ball cap, as the data taker scribbles into a notebook. “Babies!” an excited crew member says, prompting a student to run into the cabin for an ultrasound.
“One, two, three!” they say before giving the shark a gentle shove back into the water. “Bye, friend!” It all happens in less than 10 minutes before the large fish is back in the depths of Biscayne Bay.
On our way back to shore, the team chats about the ways sharks are imperiled off Florida’s coastline. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) regulates the harvest of some sharks in state waters, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regulates commercial shark fishing and limits how many sharks each recreational fishing boat can harvest. But those regulations go only so far, and data can only inform, not dictate, responsible wildlife management.
“Science cannot answer questions about what we should do,” says Julia Wester, a Field School founding member who focuses on the social science of sharks and humans. “It can answer questions about what will or might happen if we take different paths, it can answer questions about how things are going, but it cannot tell us what to do with that information.”
Another crew member looks at me with a common question I had received throughout my reporting: “Have you talked to Mark the Shark?”
Bloody waterMark Quartiano grew up catching freshwater eels in the creek behind his parents’ home on Coney Island. He looks like a surfer-boy stereotype: a burly build complete with shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair, a chunky shell necklace, sportfishing sunglasses, and a wry smile.
“The world’s most notorious shark hunter in history,” reads his Instagram bio, which ends with an enthusiastic “KIDS WELCOMED!” (Scroll down, and you’ll see photos of bloody sharks hanging from his charter boat’s gallows and lots of women in bikinis.)
“WARNING: POLITICALLY INCORRECT,” a sarcastic sign reads on the charter’s website. Another sign warns: “Some photos on this fishing site may not be suitable for very small children, the faint-hearted, or PETA members.”
Quartiano has a big personality and an even bigger reputation in Miami. He prides himself on landing the biggest sharks, denies that certain species are endangered, and parades his catch to shore hanging from the boat’s gallows. Yet he doesn’t break the law.
When I reach out to him for a call, he sends me a folder full of bloody photos of sharks. He adds that he goes on an “iguana trip” at 6 p.m. every day with his elementary school-aged son, whose social media name is “The Crockett Man.” Finally, I get him on the phone.
Mark Quartiano, known as Mark the Shark, leads shark fishing tours in the Miami area. (459x729, AR: 0.6296296296296297)
“Hey, Mark! It’s Marlowe, how are ya?”
“Hey! Ooh, I’m tied up, I’ve got a fish on,” he replies, wind muffling his voice. “Bye-bye-bye.”
A few minutes later, I receive a photo of Crockett Man wearing Dad’s sunglasses, missing his two front teeth, and holding a large snook, a local gamefish characterized by its bold black stripe.
An hour later, another photo: Crockett Man holding an iguana he presumably hunted down.
And a few days later, a photo of Crockett Man and a friend standing next to a decapitated, partially eaten crocodile. The culprit? “Sharks,” Quartiano texted back.
Of course, Quartiano catches more than sharks. There’s also mahi mahi, grouper, sailfish, and barracuda, but he’s still better known as the Shark Slayer.
“There’s a lot of fish that are on the protected list that should be off the protected list,” he told CNN in its July “Deep Dive” episode on sharks.
“In my opinion, there’s no ‘diminishing a population of hammerheads,’” Quartiano continued in the CNN special. “They’re everywhere. We catch them all the time. If they’re so endangered, why do we catch them every day?”
But when thousands of people are out fishing on Florida’s waters year-round, those numbers accumulate.
“One guide doing shark populations harm? I don’t know,” he told CNN. “I’m getting way too much credit.”
Last summer, photos of a young girl posing with a dead, pregnant great hammerhead went internationally viral, depicting her lying on top of the hammerhead on a dock and kissing one of the babies that was in the shark’s womb. The photos sparked heated controversy, with some calling attention to the species’ critically endangered status. It was no surprise to scientists that Quartiano stood proudly on his charter boat in the background of the photos, the conduit for what some people think should be a crime.
“This one happened to be pregnant, which is devastating, obviously, knowing what we know about their genetics and the population status in general,” observes Hannah Medd, founder of the American Shark Conservancy. “But everything he did was completely legal.”
Dead or aliveEach summer, the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa hosts an unofficial Richard Dreyfuss costume contest, an ode to the famed actor’s marine biologist character in the blockbuster film, “Jaws.” Attendees don their best shark attire for the city’s annual SharkCon, a ComicCon for sharks sponsored by National Geographic. Vendors sell shark merchandise, pool products, boats, and more at dozens of booths inside the fairgrounds.
Meanwhile, around the perimeter, a few environmental organizations showcase live tegus, burrowing owls, and other critters. In a corner in the back of the building, scientists, activists, and other educators give onstage presentations about conservation.
And in another corner of the venue are dive-tour companies, the folks who generally believe sharks are worth more alive than dead. “The laws protect the fisherman, not the animal,” Ryan Walton tells me at the booth for Shark Tours FL, his ecotourism company.
With tattooed arms and legs, silver piercings, and a motivational high-school dropout story, Walton founded his business on education, teaching his clients about the animals with which he spends so much time. I join him a couple of weeks later for a tour off Riviera Beach to experience what he and others describe as life-changing.
Like many of his clients, I am not SCUBA certified. That’s why Walton takes a different approach to shark diving: Instead of gearing up with oxygen tanks, his clients gear up with snorkel masks.
Snorkelers gather about three miles offshore from Riviera Beach, Florida, to swim with sharks. (852x478, AR: 1.782426778242678)
“We have three rules here,” Walton says on our way out of the marina. “Rule number one: Don’t be dumb, stay out of the chum.” The other two rules are simple: Stay on the rope, and don’t pet the sharks. (A bonus rule: Have fun.)
“Silkies,” the affectionate nickname for silky sharks, are a common visitor this time of year, he tells me and the other two clients on board in late July 2024. “You could also see sandbar, bull, scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, blacktip, spinner, dusky, and Caribbean reef shark,” he continues. “So literally nine different shark species off the ledge this time of year right now.”
The “ledge,” otherwise known as the “Gulf Stream ledge,” is an oceanographic feature that was known even to Hemingway. In his famous novella, “The Old Man and the Sea,” he describes it as “the great well,” a dropoff in the reef offshore where baitfish and other prey species gather “because of the swirl the current [makes] against the steep walls of the floor of the ocean.” That’s food for predators and a great place to find sharks.
Equipped with a wetsuit, flippers, and a snorkel mask, I slide into the deep blue water and dip my mask below the surface. I don’t expect to immediately see a dozen silky and sandbar sharks swimming below and between our flippered legs. Most surprisingly, I don’t feel scared.
Marjorie Sharks Video Part 3.mp4
Our snorkel tubes bob on the surface as we watch Walton hand-feed the sharks just a few feet away — a careful routine he has safely practiced for more than a decade — with Koa, his 9-year-old son, hovering on his back, practicing to hopefully someday lead these tours on his own.
“What’s up shark people,” Walton says to his phone camera after a dive. He’s recording himself for Instagram, providing his 117,000 followers with high-quality shark footage and information on open spots for upcoming tours. “Caribbean reef sharks, bull sharks, mahi mahi, blue water,” he says. “Come see us tomorrow. SharkToursFL.com.”
Marjorie Sharks Part 3.mp3
On social media, Walton wants to reach demographics that appreciate sharks simply for being cool. But it’s not just for views; education is a top priority. Walton recently collaborated with a Nova Southeastern University student who is collecting data on how the tours impact clients. Some even say it’s their form of therapy.
“My goal in working with her is to show that we are probably one of the most powerful forces for conservation,” Walton says. “When we strap people up with this ammunition of education, then they can go out there and spread it around and tell people about what sharks are really like from a first-person perspective — not some narrated crap on Shark Week.”
Despite Walton’s best efforts, people still blame sharks for the environmental and behavioral changes Floridians are noticing, he says — notably, depredation. In reality, there’s a myriad of environmental changes that could account for how sharks are interacting with anglers: shifting ocean currents, diminished fish populations, and warmer water among them. Walton has even observed cetaceans, such as whales, moving closer to shore than before.
“Anybody can blame sharks for anything,” he says. “Maybe the one not-naturally occurring thing that we need to figure out is overfishing.”
Ryan Walton and his son Koa lead snorkeling excursions with sharks as part of Walton’s ecotourism company, Shark Tours FL. (778x436, AR: 1.7844036697247707)
Standing beside dad, Koa checks to make sure everything is loaded and ready for the ride back to shore. It’s bittersweet for Walton to know that his son is inspired to work with sharks as an adult. The confrontations Walton has navigated in his diving career — from accusations that the diving industry has altered shark behavior to tensions with anglers — may not ever go away.
Walton isn’t sure that he wants Koa to endure the same battles. But he wants him to pursue his passion, no matter what, as long as Koa knows what lies ahead.
Striking the balance When the Netflix documentary “Seaspiracy” was released, it made waves. However, it dangerously proposed that there is no such thing as sustainable fishing, Shiffman says, and that the only solution is to avoid all marine products.
“In the marine biology world, there are sort of two big schools of thought about what to do about fishing,” he says. “We had the leaders of both schools of thought come out and say this movie is bad and wrong, and I honestly cannot remember the last time that they agreed on anything.”
The “Seaspiracy” splash, and its tangential effects on policy like the 2022 fin ban, speak to the ways in which strong media pressures have sometimes outweighed the best available science.
“A big shock to me is that sometimes, when the science gets to the policy, they can ignore it, or they can manipulate it, or they can take it in a different direction,” says Medd of American Shark Conservancy.
Humans’ relationship with sharks plays into how lawmakers shape policies, too.
“We have trouble imagining the ocean as wilderness and nature,” says Ryan Orgera, the global director for Accountability.Fish. “So we almost inherently commodify [it] in a way that we have a different emotional reaction.”
This disconnect is a big reason why there’s dissonance among our policies. Wildlife management is as much about managing animals as it is about managing people, points out Wester, the Field School scientist.
“Policy is always a conversation about trade-offs between different values, but people don’t like to have that conversation because it feels subjective,” she tells me on the Garvin. “The only way that we can overcome that is by having conversations face to face, and that’s, I think, diminishingly rare in policy.”
“The ocean’s changing. Climate change is real, and I see it.”
There certainly needs to be more collaboration among different groups in developing such policies, argues Sonja Fordham, founder of Shark Advocates International.
“When I started, [sharks] still had mostly a negative reputation,” says Fordham, who has been working on shark policy since 1991 with organizations such as the Ocean Conservancy. “We’ve seen them become much more popular with the public. There are many more NGOs working on shark conservation, so that’s good. But there’s this gap.”
A primary gap she sees is between environmental and fisheries bodies. Sharks are seen as both wildlife and commodities, making it tricky to delegate them to one decision maker. Another gap is that management decisions work a lot slower than needed to address the most urgent conservation issues.
Now that Florida voters constitutionalized hunting and fishing rights, commoditization may become even more prevalent. The U.S. is generally one of the best countries in the world for shark conservation, Fordham contends, but even here, the agencies charged with managing wildlife and fisheries sometimes don’t work in lockstep.
“Florida really has — I can’t think of another state — such potential reach” for exemplifying responsible shark management, Fordham says.
The question is whether governing bodies will listen.
Marjorie Part 3 Sharing The Oceans.mp4
Coexisting with sharksCapt. Jimmy Hull, a commercial shark fisherman in Florida who is trying to rebuild a sustainable shark fishery, recalls being among the first commercial fishermen to sit in on a NOAA Fisheries data workshop. It was for the red snapper stock, and from then on, “we started really requesting to be involved in data collection cooperatively,” he says.
As time passes, Hull says he has noticed even more challenges than the overfishing he once witnessed over the course of his 54-year career.
“The ocean’s changing,” Hull, at 69 years old, says to me over the phone while he overlooks the Halifax River in Ormond Beach. “Climate change is real, and I see it.”
He sees changes in species migrations and bait-fish movements. He also sees increasing water temperatures caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions and decreasing water quality caused by runoff from Florida’s booming population.
Though the U.S. is considered one of the best countries in the world for shark conservation, even here, the agencies charged with managing wildlife and fisheries sometimes don’t work in lockstep, said Sonja Fordham, founder of Shark Advocates International. (852x478, AR: 1.782426778242678)
Responsible shark management is complex. It requires action at several levels of government, international cooperation, ever-evolving policy, reliable data, science-based regulations, and much more.
But work in these areas can indeed result in progress, Fordham says: “If we look at the few cases where we have rebuilt depleted shark populations that are now being fished relatively sustainably, they’ve had relative success based on relatively simple measures.” Skates, spiny dogfish, and blacktips are examples of sharks that have bounced back thanks to commercial fishing quotas and recreational fishing limits.
“When you look at the places around the world where shark management has been successful, in many cases, it’s quite simple,” Fordham says. “Start somewhere. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.
David Shiffman, bedecked in a skipper’s hat, stands before a boat full of what he calls “shark-ophiles.” The scientists and students aboard are clad in shark-patterned leggings and hammerhead tattoos, and the rest of the group are everyday people eager to catch a glimpse of their favorite animal.
“We’re going fishing, but we’re going fishing for science,” Shiffman announces to the non-scientists, most of whom paid to participate in this shark-tagging excursion. All of the money will be used to support public school students who want to learn more about being a shark scientist.
David Shiffman orients a group on a shark-tagging trip in July 2024. (973x646, AR: 1.5061919504643964)
This research vessel, the Garvin, is responsible for taking University of Miami’s Field School scientists and students from its Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science out on about two to five shark-fishing trips each week to collect as much data on as many sharks as possible. Then, the data will be used to inform a myriad of research projects focused on specific species and larger trends in shark science.
“The samples and the data that you’re helping us to collect today are going to support real science to get published in scientific journals,” Shiffman continues. “It gets presented at conferences. It helps influence policy at the state, federal, and sometimes international scale. So you’re doing real science today.”
The Garvin’s daily average is two sharks. But on this day, 2.5 miles offshore from Key Biscayne, the team catches seven: three nurse sharks, one bull, one lemon, one Caribbean reef, and one massive tiger shark.
The process is well-rehearsed. Gloved hands cut into frozen chunks of bonito and barracuda to use as bait, which are secured on large circle hooks that won’t get caught in the shark’s gills or throat. The team uses a modified drum line to cast their lines, which are weighed down by a 50-pound “drum” that sits on the seafloor. The hooks are attached to thick fishing line, which is attached to rope, which is attached to thicker rope.
“Drop’s away, drop’s away!” one crew member announces after chucking the weighted bait into the water. Then, the team lets out all the rope and hauls the attached buoy overboard.
“Float’s away, float’s away!”
“All clear, all clear!”
Hammerheads are especially vulnerable to post-catch mortality because of their high stress levels, but all sharks are sensitive. To keep them calm, the team inserts a PVC-pipe pump into the shark’s mouth to let ocean water run over its gills, allowing it to breathe while the scientists take measurements, blood samples, and fin clippings for genetic sampling as well as tag them and check for parasites.
The Field School team collects data from a 14-foot tiger shark near Miami, Florida. (971x648, AR: 1.498456790123457)
Seeing a 14-foot tiger shark just a few feet away is awe-inspiring. Bright turquoise water laps around its massive girth, making its leopard-patterned skin glisten in the sun.
“Blood!” a team member yells, handing a vial of maroon liquid to a colleague. “Copepods on body,” another announces, a spare shark tag sticking out of her ball cap, as the data taker scribbles into a notebook. “Babies!” an excited crew member says, prompting a student to run into the cabin for an ultrasound.
“One, two, three!” they say before giving the shark a gentle shove back into the water. “Bye, friend!” It all happens in less than 10 minutes before the large fish is back in the depths of Biscayne Bay.
On our way back to shore, the team chats about the ways sharks are imperiled off Florida’s coastline. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) regulates the harvest of some sharks in state waters, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regulates commercial shark fishing and limits how many sharks each recreational fishing boat can harvest. But those regulations go only so far, and data can only inform, not dictate, responsible wildlife management.
“Science cannot answer questions about what we should do,” says Julia Wester, a Field School founding member who focuses on the social science of sharks and humans. “It can answer questions about what will or might happen if we take different paths, it can answer questions about how things are going, but it cannot tell us what to do with that information.”
Another crew member looks at me with a common question I had received throughout my reporting: “Have you talked to Mark the Shark?”
Bloody waterMark Quartiano grew up catching freshwater eels in the creek behind his parents’ home on Coney Island. He looks like a surfer-boy stereotype: a burly build complete with shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair, a chunky shell necklace, sportfishing sunglasses, and a wry smile.
“The world’s most notorious shark hunter in history,” reads his Instagram bio, which ends with an enthusiastic “KIDS WELCOMED!” (Scroll down, and you’ll see photos of bloody sharks hanging from his charter boat’s gallows and lots of women in bikinis.)
“WARNING: POLITICALLY INCORRECT,” a sarcastic sign reads on the charter’s website. Another sign warns: “Some photos on this fishing site may not be suitable for very small children, the faint-hearted, or PETA members.”
Quartiano has a big personality and an even bigger reputation in Miami. He prides himself on landing the biggest sharks, denies that certain species are endangered, and parades his catch to shore hanging from the boat’s gallows. Yet he doesn’t break the law.
When I reach out to him for a call, he sends me a folder full of bloody photos of sharks. He adds that he goes on an “iguana trip” at 6 p.m. every day with his elementary school-aged son, whose social media name is “The Crockett Man.” Finally, I get him on the phone.
Mark Quartiano, known as Mark the Shark, leads shark fishing tours in the Miami area. (459x729, AR: 0.6296296296296297)
“Hey, Mark! It’s Marlowe, how are ya?”
“Hey! Ooh, I’m tied up, I’ve got a fish on,” he replies, wind muffling his voice. “Bye-bye-bye.”
A few minutes later, I receive a photo of Crockett Man wearing Dad’s sunglasses, missing his two front teeth, and holding a large snook, a local gamefish characterized by its bold black stripe.
An hour later, another photo: Crockett Man holding an iguana he presumably hunted down.
And a few days later, a photo of Crockett Man and a friend standing next to a decapitated, partially eaten crocodile. The culprit? “Sharks,” Quartiano texted back.
Of course, Quartiano catches more than sharks. There’s also mahi mahi, grouper, sailfish, and barracuda, but he’s still better known as the Shark Slayer.
“There’s a lot of fish that are on the protected list that should be off the protected list,” he told CNN in its July “Deep Dive” episode on sharks.
“In my opinion, there’s no ‘diminishing a population of hammerheads,’” Quartiano continued in the CNN special. “They’re everywhere. We catch them all the time. If they’re so endangered, why do we catch them every day?”
But when thousands of people are out fishing on Florida’s waters year-round, those numbers accumulate.
“One guide doing shark populations harm? I don’t know,” he told CNN. “I’m getting way too much credit.”
Last summer, photos of a young girl posing with a dead, pregnant great hammerhead went internationally viral, depicting her lying on top of the hammerhead on a dock and kissing one of the babies that was in the shark’s womb. The photos sparked heated controversy, with some calling attention to the species’ critically endangered status. It was no surprise to scientists that Quartiano stood proudly on his charter boat in the background of the photos, the conduit for what some people think should be a crime.
“This one happened to be pregnant, which is devastating, obviously, knowing what we know about their genetics and the population status in general,” observes Hannah Medd, founder of the American Shark Conservancy. “But everything he did was completely legal.”
Dead or aliveEach summer, the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa hosts an unofficial Richard Dreyfuss costume contest, an ode to the famed actor’s marine biologist character in the blockbuster film, “Jaws.” Attendees don their best shark attire for the city’s annual SharkCon, a ComicCon for sharks sponsored by National Geographic. Vendors sell shark merchandise, pool products, boats, and more at dozens of booths inside the fairgrounds.
Meanwhile, around the perimeter, a few environmental organizations showcase live tegus, burrowing owls, and other critters. In a corner in the back of the building, scientists, activists, and other educators give onstage presentations about conservation.
And in another corner of the venue are dive-tour companies, the folks who generally believe sharks are worth more alive than dead. “The laws protect the fisherman, not the animal,” Ryan Walton tells me at the booth for Shark Tours FL, his ecotourism company.
With tattooed arms and legs, silver piercings, and a motivational high-school dropout story, Walton founded his business on education, teaching his clients about the animals with which he spends so much time. I join him a couple of weeks later for a tour off Riviera Beach to experience what he and others describe as life-changing.
Like many of his clients, I am not SCUBA certified. That’s why Walton takes a different approach to shark diving: Instead of gearing up with oxygen tanks, his clients gear up with snorkel masks.
Snorkelers gather about three miles offshore from Riviera Beach, Florida, to swim with sharks. (852x478, AR: 1.782426778242678)
“We have three rules here,” Walton says on our way out of the marina. “Rule number one: Don’t be dumb, stay out of the chum.” The other two rules are simple: Stay on the rope, and don’t pet the sharks. (A bonus rule: Have fun.)
“Silkies,” the affectionate nickname for silky sharks, are a common visitor this time of year, he tells me and the other two clients on board in late July 2024. “You could also see sandbar, bull, scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, blacktip, spinner, dusky, and Caribbean reef shark,” he continues. “So literally nine different shark species off the ledge this time of year right now.”
The “ledge,” otherwise known as the “Gulf Stream ledge,” is an oceanographic feature that was known even to Hemingway. In his famous novella, “The Old Man and the Sea,” he describes it as “the great well,” a dropoff in the reef offshore where baitfish and other prey species gather “because of the swirl the current [makes] against the steep walls of the floor of the ocean.” That’s food for predators and a great place to find sharks.
Equipped with a wetsuit, flippers, and a snorkel mask, I slide into the deep blue water and dip my mask below the surface. I don’t expect to immediately see a dozen silky and sandbar sharks swimming below and between our flippered legs. Most surprisingly, I don’t feel scared.
Marjorie Sharks Video Part 3.mp4
Our snorkel tubes bob on the surface as we watch Walton hand-feed the sharks just a few feet away — a careful routine he has safely practiced for more than a decade — with Koa, his 9-year-old son, hovering on his back, practicing to hopefully someday lead these tours on his own.
“What’s up shark people,” Walton says to his phone camera after a dive. He’s recording himself for Instagram, providing his 117,000 followers with high-quality shark footage and information on open spots for upcoming tours. “Caribbean reef sharks, bull sharks, mahi mahi, blue water,” he says. “Come see us tomorrow. SharkToursFL.com.”
Marjorie Sharks Part 3.mp3
On social media, Walton wants to reach demographics that appreciate sharks simply for being cool. But it’s not just for views; education is a top priority. Walton recently collaborated with a Nova Southeastern University student who is collecting data on how the tours impact clients. Some even say it’s their form of therapy.
“My goal in working with her is to show that we are probably one of the most powerful forces for conservation,” Walton says. “When we strap people up with this ammunition of education, then they can go out there and spread it around and tell people about what sharks are really like from a first-person perspective — not some narrated crap on Shark Week.”
Despite Walton’s best efforts, people still blame sharks for the environmental and behavioral changes Floridians are noticing, he says — notably, depredation. In reality, there’s a myriad of environmental changes that could account for how sharks are interacting with anglers: shifting ocean currents, diminished fish populations, and warmer water among them. Walton has even observed cetaceans, such as whales, moving closer to shore than before.
“Anybody can blame sharks for anything,” he says. “Maybe the one not-naturally occurring thing that we need to figure out is overfishing.”
Ryan Walton and his son Koa lead snorkeling excursions with sharks as part of Walton’s ecotourism company, Shark Tours FL. (778x436, AR: 1.7844036697247707)
Standing beside dad, Koa checks to make sure everything is loaded and ready for the ride back to shore. It’s bittersweet for Walton to know that his son is inspired to work with sharks as an adult. The confrontations Walton has navigated in his diving career — from accusations that the diving industry has altered shark behavior to tensions with anglers — may not ever go away.
Walton isn’t sure that he wants Koa to endure the same battles. But he wants him to pursue his passion, no matter what, as long as Koa knows what lies ahead.
Striking the balance When the Netflix documentary “Seaspiracy” was released, it made waves. However, it dangerously proposed that there is no such thing as sustainable fishing, Shiffman says, and that the only solution is to avoid all marine products.
“In the marine biology world, there are sort of two big schools of thought about what to do about fishing,” he says. “We had the leaders of both schools of thought come out and say this movie is bad and wrong, and I honestly cannot remember the last time that they agreed on anything.”
The “Seaspiracy” splash, and its tangential effects on policy like the 2022 fin ban, speak to the ways in which strong media pressures have sometimes outweighed the best available science.
“A big shock to me is that sometimes, when the science gets to the policy, they can ignore it, or they can manipulate it, or they can take it in a different direction,” says Medd of American Shark Conservancy.
Humans’ relationship with sharks plays into how lawmakers shape policies, too.
“We have trouble imagining the ocean as wilderness and nature,” says Ryan Orgera, the global director for Accountability.Fish. “So we almost inherently commodify [it] in a way that we have a different emotional reaction.”
This disconnect is a big reason why there’s dissonance among our policies. Wildlife management is as much about managing animals as it is about managing people, points out Wester, the Field School scientist.
“Policy is always a conversation about trade-offs between different values, but people don’t like to have that conversation because it feels subjective,” she tells me on the Garvin. “The only way that we can overcome that is by having conversations face to face, and that’s, I think, diminishingly rare in policy.”
“The ocean’s changing. Climate change is real, and I see it.”
There certainly needs to be more collaboration among different groups in developing such policies, argues Sonja Fordham, founder of Shark Advocates International.
“When I started, [sharks] still had mostly a negative reputation,” says Fordham, who has been working on shark policy since 1991 with organizations such as the Ocean Conservancy. “We’ve seen them become much more popular with the public. There are many more NGOs working on shark conservation, so that’s good. But there’s this gap.”
A primary gap she sees is between environmental and fisheries bodies. Sharks are seen as both wildlife and commodities, making it tricky to delegate them to one decision maker. Another gap is that management decisions work a lot slower than needed to address the most urgent conservation issues.
Now that Florida voters constitutionalized hunting and fishing rights, commoditization may become even more prevalent. The U.S. is generally one of the best countries in the world for shark conservation, Fordham contends, but even here, the agencies charged with managing wildlife and fisheries sometimes don’t work in lockstep.
“Florida really has — I can’t think of another state — such potential reach” for exemplifying responsible shark management, Fordham says.
The question is whether governing bodies will listen.
Marjorie Part 3 Sharing The Oceans.mp4
Coexisting with sharksCapt. Jimmy Hull, a commercial shark fisherman in Florida who is trying to rebuild a sustainable shark fishery, recalls being among the first commercial fishermen to sit in on a NOAA Fisheries data workshop. It was for the red snapper stock, and from then on, “we started really requesting to be involved in data collection cooperatively,” he says.
As time passes, Hull says he has noticed even more challenges than the overfishing he once witnessed over the course of his 54-year career.
“The ocean’s changing,” Hull, at 69 years old, says to me over the phone while he overlooks the Halifax River in Ormond Beach. “Climate change is real, and I see it.”
He sees changes in species migrations and bait-fish movements. He also sees increasing water temperatures caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions and decreasing water quality caused by runoff from Florida’s booming population.
Though the U.S. is considered one of the best countries in the world for shark conservation, even here, the agencies charged with managing wildlife and fisheries sometimes don’t work in lockstep, said Sonja Fordham, founder of Shark Advocates International. (852x478, AR: 1.782426778242678)
Responsible shark management is complex. It requires action at several levels of government, international cooperation, ever-evolving policy, reliable data, science-based regulations, and much more.
But work in these areas can indeed result in progress, Fordham says: “If we look at the few cases where we have rebuilt depleted shark populations that are now being fished relatively sustainably, they’ve had relative success based on relatively simple measures.” Skates, spiny dogfish, and blacktips are examples of sharks that have bounced back thanks to commercial fishing quotas and recreational fishing limits.
“When you look at the places around the world where shark management has been successful, in many cases, it’s quite simple,” Fordham says. “Start somewhere. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.