SOS Citizen Science

     Shark Base Citizen Science

Effective management of sharks starts with an understanding of their population status, which will ultimately instruct their future conservation. Unfortunately, many shark species are at significant risk of unrecoverable decline, with some species having declined to near extinction in recent years. We believe that Citizen Science could hold the key to improving our understanding and management of shark populations, whilst also advancing community education.

Citizen science initiatives allow a network of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, to perform research-related tasks, such as recording species observations accumulated over time to reveal local trends. Our collaborators at the University of Western Australia have shown that Citizen Scientists can actually deliver better quality data on shark populations than conventional acoustic tagging methods, which are not only very costly, but also potentially harmful.

Our Citizen Science projects have been developed by internationally recognised shark scientists to ensure that the data collected will be of most use to the scientific community in improving the management of shark populations worldwide. All of the data collected from SOS Citizen Science projects will be used by researchers at the University of Western Australia and published in internationally recognised journals.

Become a Citizen Shark Scientist by taking part in our projects and you will be helping to provide crucial information to improve the management of shark populations worldwide.