James Sulikowski Archives - Saving Seafood

To great white sharks off Maine: Smile, you’re on research cameras

July 24, 2018 — Marine researchers have deployed underwater cameras in hopes of documenting great white sharks off the coast of southern Maine for the first time.

The effort is part of the first study dedicated to learning about the habits of the sharks near Maine. Scientists say great whites – the world’s largest predatory fish – have increased in number in the Atlantic Ocean and will continue to do so in the Gulf of Maine.

Two cameras, each attached to a crate of chum to attract large fish, were deployed by University of New England professor James Sulikowski and undergraduates two weeks ago near Stratton Island, 2 miles from Old Orchard Beach. The island was chosen because a radio receiver that Sulikowski placed on a nearby buoy detected a tagged great white shark last fall.

“The goal is to get a better understanding of the ecosystem and what white sharks are coming in, and to find out how prevalent they are,” said Sulikowski, a marine biologist.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Scientists: Maine coast could see more great white sharks

December 5, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — A great white shark detected in waters off Maine could be a sign that the big fish will become a more common sight in the years to come, say scientists who study sharks in New England.

White sharks are near the northern edge of their range along the Maine coast, though they are not commonly seen in the area. One of the sharks was spotted in the waters off Kennebunkport in the summer of 2016, sparking interest in finding out how many live off Maine.

University of New England marine scientist James Sulikowski has set out to answer that question, and he’s making his first findings public. Tracking devices discovered a different, 12-foot great white about 1.5 miles off of Old Orchard Beach in September of this year, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Herald

Study tracks great white sharks off Maine coast

A UNE professor joins Massachusetts researchers in examining patterns of a population likely to proliferate in the Gulf of Maine.

July 31, 2017 — Marine biologists are embarking on the first study dedicated to learning about the habits of great white sharks off the coast of southern Maine, where the scientists say the fishes’ population is likely to increase.

University of New England professor James Sulikowski will collaborate with Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to see how often the sharks come near the coast.

Great white sharks are the world’s largest predatory fish. Known for their powerful jaws and serrated teeth, they can grow to more than 20 feet and 4,000 pounds.

They have been protected from harvesting in U.S. waters since 1991. Skomal said the shark population has been rebounding since.

“We definitely believe the entire East Coast population is increasing and that we are likely to see white sharks in the Gulf of Maine increasing,” he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: ‘Shark Week’ episode to feature Maine professor

June 28, 2017 — During more than 25 years studying a variety of fish, including sharks, James Sulikowski has had to solve all kinds of problems. Among the trickiest and most important: How do you gather data about pregnant sharks without first killing them?

“The catch-22 is that you need the information to better manage them, but in order to get the information [you used to have to] kill them. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Sulikowski, a professor at the University of New England in Biddeford, said. “So that’s where my sort of science came in. We treated sharks basically like pregnant females, like human beings. How are humans studied? Well, you take blood and you can look at that blood for circulating levels of hormones [to determine if the female is pregnant].”

That idea morphed into taking special waterproof, veterinary-grade ultrasound equipment onto boats and examining sharks that later would be released alive.

That kind of newly available data on shark reproduction made Sulikowski and his colleagues rock stars in the shark world and drew the interest of the Discovery Channel.

When Discovery Channel’s popular “Shark Week” franchise returns for another wall-to-wall dose of toothy adventure in July, Sulikowski and his colleagues will be prominently featured. That episode, titled “Shark Vortex,” will air at 8 p.m. on July 24.

Sulikowski was tight-lipped about what viewers will see during the episode, which marks the second straight year his work will have been featured during “Shark Week.” In 2016, “Tiger Beach” kicked off Shark Week and drew between 6 million and 7 million viewers during three airings, according to Sulikowski.

“[‘Shark Vortex’] is top secret. I signed my life away for that,” Sulikowski said. “But I can tell you it’s a great story. It’s basically sharks of New England, in a sense. It’s gonna have white sharks, it’s gonna have makos, it’s gonna have porbeagles. The ones that really separate us from other places.”

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

No unprovoked shark attacks in Maine. “Not one.”

June 28, 2017 — Days after there was a reported shark sighting on Wells Beach, a University of New England shark expert tells beachgoers the chances of being attacked by a shark, particularly in Maine, are astronomically low.

Police cleared Wells Beach of swimmers Sunday afternoon, after a reported sighting of a shark. Wells Police Sgt. Adam Shaw said it was a precautionary measure, taken when someone reported seeing a 12-foot shark in the water between Wells Beach and North Beach. He said the harbormaster searched the area and found no signs of a shark.

The initial report came from a paddleboarder who said the shark was as long or longer than his 12-foot board. A second report came from an individual who thought it was a harmless basking shark.

Dr. James Sulikowski, professor of marine science at University of New England in Biddeford, said beachgoers globally are concerned about sharks – but that needs to be put in some perspective.

“One of the biggest concerns people have when they go to the beach is being attacked and eaten by a shark,” Sulikowski said. “But if you look at it globally, there are 100 to 150 shark attacks per year – that’s across the world. And if you put it in perspective with how many billions of people there are, the chances are astronomically low. And then to bring it into further perspective, there’s never been an unprovoked shark attack in Maine. Not one.”

Sulikowski, a global expert in the study of sharks, said basking sharks are more common in Maine waters, and are often confused with great white sharks. He said they often come much close to shore and they can be 25 to 30 feet long. They have big wide mouths and no teeth, and they feed on plankton and small fish, he said.

Read the full story at the Portsmouth Herald

Thanks to ‘Dr. Shark,’ researchers can learn and let live

June 24, 2016 — A UNE researcher known as ‘Dr. Shark’ develops a method that allows fish data collection without killing the specimens.

A decade ago, when James Sulikowski first came to the University of New England, scientists who studied shark reproduction had to kill and gut their specimens to unlock the secrets of how these elusive fish gave birth.

Sulikowski wanted to learn more about the reproductive process in hopes of bolstering shark numbers, and didn’t like the idea of having to kill pregnant sharks and their unborn young to do it. That study method also made it impossible to study the reproductive habits of endangered sharks, such as the basking, hammerhead or tiger shark, even though information about how these threatened groups lived and loved would have helped policymakers protect their mating or pupping grounds and possibly help stabilize their populations.

Scientists had begun using blood samples to supplement their shark necropsies, measuring hormone levels to establish the stage of pregnancy, but Sulikowski, a father of three, thought researchers could go further. About five years ago, he turned to the same kind of sonogram technology that doctors use to monitor pregnant women – complete with a transducer, an image screen and conductive jelly – and adapted it for use on pregnant sharks, as well as other elusive or endangered fish species, such as sturgeon.

“There is so much that we still don’t know, like where different species of sharks go to give birth,” Sulikowski said, “and so much that we think we do know, like the length of gestation for our local spiny dogfish that we are just now learning through the use of this technology and tagging that is just plain wrong. I love that. I love challenging accepted science. For me, it’s always about being inquisitive, testing what we think we know, asking what we don’t and figuring out new ways to come up with answers to questions we didn’t even know to ask just a few years ago.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald