Winter 2024 35 PHOTO BY FIRSTNAME LAST CREDIT TK Then Jurado feels that tug on the line. “If it starts freaking out, just let go,” Chapple tells the student.Then he tells the shark: “Chill out, relax.” There’s a splash and a whump as a muscular gray body hits the boat. Raised in Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie, Chapple was 13 when he earned his scuba certification. On a dive during a family vacation in Florida, he encountered his first shark: an eight-foot nurse shark lunching on a fish. With the last gulp, the shark swam past him: “a moment of sheer joy and sheer terror all at once.” By now, Chapple has studied sharks — particularly great whites — for more than 20 years in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A College of Agricultural Sciences faculty member since 2019, based in the new Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, he typically spends 120 days per year on the water. But catching sight of those swift, powerful animals never grows old. The boat tips to starboard as Chapple lowers a stretcher- like “cradle” into the water and works with master’s student Ethan Personius to maneuver the thrashing shark, its mouth gaping open with razor-sharp teeth. They secure it with three straps and then crank a winch, lifting the cradle and swinging it around to straddle the back of the boat. Sharks move up and down the Pacific Coast, many species arriving alongside Oregon and Washington in spring and returning south in the fall. Broadnose sevengills — ڿ Gabriel Jurado was one of five Indigenous students participating in the research trip with support from the Marine Studies Initiative. ↓ The research crew at work (top). Ethan Personius and Jessica Schulte with Professor Taylor Chapple (bottom).
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