34 ForOregonState.org/Stater PHOTO BY FIRSTNAME LAST CREDIT TK Oceanography sophomore Gabriel Jurado has caught the day’s first shark.And it’s about to come aboard. July 23, 7:13 p.m.: On the 22-foot Oregon State University research boat Arima, two graduate students, two undergrads and Assistant ProfessorTaylor Chapple are fishing for sharks in Willapa Bay, Washington. Coincidentally, it’s the first day of the Discovery Channel’s SharkWeek. The Northeast Pacific is home to at least 15 species of sharks, but we know relatively little about them. Chapple’s Big Fish Lab is aiming to change that — and to change attitudes among the world’s most dangerous species: the human race. This day trip is for Jessica Schulte’s doctoral dissertation in fisheries science. She’s studying broadnose sevengill sharks. The goal is to learn where they go and what they eat. We can’t protect sharks when we don’t know the crucial habitats where they mate and give birth to their pups. When we don’t know how many there are, we can’t know if the population is stable or endangered. The Oregon Coast Aquarium has the conservation status for sevengill sharks listed as “unknown,” for lack of data. Guided by a sonar depth finder, we drop four red buoys at an underwater crossroads where deep channels cut through the shallow, muddy bay. Each buoy has a weight that sinks to the bottom, plus hooks, each the size of a half-dollar. Sockeye salmon is the bait. In the first hour, we catch eelgrass and a crab. “Is it time for Johnny Cash yet?” someone asks. Rumor has it, playing the Man in Black seems to draw the sharks. We throw a sacrificial Dorito overboard. Sturgeon jump.
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