Jonathan joins Charlie Donilon on his shark charter boat in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and learns about how shark tagging has shed light on the biology of and behavior of Blue sharks. Tagging has shown that these incredible swimmers actually migrate completely across the Atlantic ocean. Jonathan tries his hand at tagging a shark and then swims with Blue sharks. We also learn that Blue sharks are not nearly as vicious as they have been reputed to be, and the divers are actually able to pet the sharks!

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The Blue shark. Implicated in attacks on shipwreck victims, and known to possess a mouthful of razorsharp teeth.

This viciouslooking fish has a few surprises in store for me as I prepare to leave the protected shore of Rhode Island and venture into the realm of the Blue shark.

I’m on board Snappa, a shark diving boat in Rhode Island run by veteran shark fisherman Charlie Donilon. In recent years, Charlie has turned from fishing for sharks to diving with sharks. We leave the harbor in the early morning because we have a long way to go to find the sharks.

After heading straight out for 3 hours we can finally stop.

Blue sharks are pelagic, that means they live in the open ocean, so to find them, we have to travel here forty miles from the coast of Rhode Island and as you can see there is no land in site.

The first thing we do is drop our shark cage into the water. The cage will protect us from the sharks when we go diving. Next, we need some sharks.

To attract sharks to the boat, we use something called chum, which is basically ground up fish parts and it looks like this. This bucket if filled with chum. And we’re throwing it overboard to create scent trail in the water. Basically, the current carries the chum off and the sharks smell it. And then they follow the smell back to the boat. And when they get here they find Charlie and he throwing nice little bite size morsels of fish over the side to keep the sharks interested.

Within only minutes, the incredibly sensitive noses of the sharks have detected our chum, and convergered on the boat.

Scientists don’t know very much about sharks, but they do know that blue sharks are incredible swimmers. Often traveling thousands of mile in only a few months. And the reasons they know this is because of these shark tags. If you put a shark tag on a shark in Rhode Island and the shark is caught thousands miles away you can tell from the tag where it came from.

Charlie volunteers to tag sharks for the National Marine Fisheries Service so they can learn about the migration patterns of Blue sharks.

The tag is a tiny piece of paper with a serial number rolled up inside a water proof capsule and attached to a barb that goes under a shark’s skin to hold it in.

Charlie is an expert shark tagger. He’s been doing it for 20 years, and today I’m getting a lesson.

The tag goes on the end of a pole. I’ll use the pole to stick the tag into a shark from a safe distance.
I know it looks painful, but thick skin on the shark’s back makes the tag barely noticeable to the shark.

Now we fill out a card that we mail in to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The card has information about the shark that we tagged, such as the location we tagged it, the sex, male or female, and approximate length.

Some of the sharks that Charlie has tagged have been caught as far away as Africa, a distance of over 2,500 miles!

As soon as I’m out in the open, the sharks closely approach me and seem to have an intense interest in my camera. They bump their noses into the lens and seem confused by it. Believe it or not, all living things put out tiny electrical impulses. Sharks have special electrical senses that can detect the electrical impulses of living things.

While I’m having fun underwater with the sharks, Charlie is still trying to tag a few more.

This shark grabs his bait and takes off with it….right between the bars and into the cage!

This is a big shark but it still fit through the camera port in the cage. Now it can’t figure out how to get out. I’m afraid the shark will hurt itself, so I have to see if I can help…without getting bitten.

I open the door and try to lead the shark out, but it is thrashing around so much that it doesn’t realize there is a way out.

I have to be very careful here, because the shark could feel cornered in the cage and it might interpret me as a threat.

Finally, I have to grab it by the pectoral fin and yank it out!