Long Island Aquarium to Host 'Shark Tag Event' for Shark Conservation on May 17

The Long Island Aquarium's Shark Tag Event, in conjunction with the Southampton and Bridgehampton School districts, will occur on May 17 in an effort to promote shark conservation through scientific exploration, according to a press release.

The event will take place at 4:20pm, during the regularly scheduled Shark Feed and Lecture session. The event is welcome to all aquarium guests. 

Greg Metzger, a science teacher at Southampton High School, will place CATS-Cam Shark Tags on great white, thresher, and sandbar sharks in the local region of the Atlantic Ocean this summer, with the help of the South Fork Natural History Museum's Shark Research and Education Program. 

The team has already placed one tag on Shredfin, a sand tiger shark, to retrieve primary data. Visitors will watch as sharks are tagged and fed a fish immediately after, as positive reinforcement. The tags will remain on the shark in the wild for at least 24 hours. When they detach, the team will use GPS to retrieve them and then collect data to determine the shark's velocity, swim patterns, and tail beats.

"That is why we are so excited about having these tags," said Metzger in a press release. "We are going to possibly be the first in the Atlantic, and in some species possibly the world, to collect this data." 

Using this data, scientists can understand how these sharks, including threshers, young great whites, dusky sharks, and sandbar sharks, behave in their natural habitats of the waters around Long Island.