Meet our tagged shark, Quint!
Just over a month ago, we asked our loyal fans to help us name our shark and after hundreds of submissions and three rounds of voting, Quint was the clear winner. We couldn’t imagine a more perfect fit for a shark tagged by the beer crushed by Quint himself in the movie Jaws. Cheers! Remember to always #CrushItLikeQuint!
Scroll Down To The Bottom Of The Page To Track Quint!
We want to take a minute to tell you a little bit about SRC and why we decided to tag a Black Tip shark with them. Directed by Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, the Shark Research & Conservation Program (SRC) at the University of Miami conducts cutting-edge shark research while also inspiring scientific literacy and environmental ethic in youth through unique hands-on field research experiences. Every year, SRC brings out thousands of people, mostly school-children, on their research boats to survey, sample, tag and study sharks. Opportunities are especially made available for under-served populations in the sciences, such as females through their F.I.N.S. Program. To impact an even larger audience from across the globe, SRC continues to use a variety of online education tools, including social media, blogs, educational videos and, online curricula. SRC’s science focuses broadly on understanding the effects of environmental change on the behavioral ecology and conservation biology of sharks in a human"altered world. The SRC Team is comprised of University of Miami faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students and volunteers. Research faculty advise the graduate students, who then act as mentors to the undergraduate students, who in turn serve as mentors to the participating school-children.
Why a Black Tip shark?
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the blacktip reef shark as vulnerable, the step before endangered, with a decreasing population. Much like Quint, Black Tip sharks can become hunted by large shark species, like the Great White shark. During summer some blacktip sharks migrate to typically cooler waters, including those off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where JAWS was filmed, while others stay put in warmer equatorial waters year-round.