By: Veronica Tadross, Daphne Yin
Diver Dottie Benjamin photographing a shark for Spot A Shark USA. / Photo: Steve Barlow
Sometimes, life on land is not enough.
Tanya Houppermans began diving recreationally in 2009, seeking a change of scenery from her desk-bound job as a mathematician for the U.S. Department of Defense. Off the coast of North Carolina, known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because of its shipwrecks, she encountered the sand tiger shark: a slow-moving, charismatic, and ragged-toothed top predator that provides refuge for other species, and has no known human fatalities. She was struck by how misunderstood they were. By 2012, she began exploring the field of shark conservation, and soon realized it was time for a bigger shift.
"In the summer of 2015, I walked into work one day and told them I’ll be hanging out with sharks. I’ve been doing that ever since,” Tanya shared.
From 2016 to 2018, Tanya worked with a few individuals at North Carolina Aquariums to launch the Spot A Shark USA program as an outgrowth of the original Spot A Shark Australia platform. Spot A Shark is an interactive online platform hosted through Wild Me’s Wildbook platform that engages formally trained scientists and citizen scientists alike in studying sand tigers, using artificial intelligence to identify and track individual sharks. Tanya contributed some of the platform’s first images of sand tigers and has worked continually with researchers at North Carolina Aquariums to record shark measurements and behavior. In her early dives to capture images for Spot A Shark, Tanya noticed both pregnant and young sand tigers far offshore - up to 30 miles - and throughout the year. These observations ran in the face of conventional wisdom that sand tigers give birth near shore and in the spring. This has led to a hypothesis that sand tigers could use shipwrecks and surrounding natural habitat as birthing grounds for pups (young sharks). The reality is that little is known about sand tiger diet, lifetime behavior, and contributions to marine ecosystems, and we are in the early stages of understanding their world.
A sand tiger shark inside the wreck of the Aeolus off the coast of North Carolina. / Photo: Tanya Houppermans
In the Atlantic Ocean, sand tigers faced threats in the 1970s-1980s until they received legal protected status in 1997 under the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan. Today, the population status of sand tigers is largely unknown, though they are estimated to have declined by 30-49% over the last ~70 years in the Northwest Atlantic region, based on the most recent IUCN listing for this species. As with other coastal shark species, recent data spark hope that their population could be rebounding with the right protections, and they are increasingly becoming associated with shipwreck habitats - making the shipwrecks off of the North Carolina coast an ideal place to research them.
Managed through North Carolina Aquariums, Spot A Shark USA has become a cornerstone for sand tiger research and conservation efforts. The platform supports a growing community of researchers, students, and citizen scientists to advance research and shift public perceptions of these top predators, transforming how we interact with and conserve this species. Spot A Shark leverages data from citizen scientists and scientific divers to glean new takeaways about sand tiger behavior, population size, and habitat usage.
Today, the platform houses images of nearly 3,000 individual sand tigers, 150 of which are repeat encounters, from over 30 sites. Earlier this year, authors from North Carolina Aquariums, Coastal Carolina University, Blue Elements Imaging and Exploration, and Wild Me published an academic article in Frontiers in Marine Science highlighting the importance of habitats off of the North Carolina coast to the movement and reproductive ecology of sand tigers at multiple life history stages.
A sand tiger shark emerges from a school of mackerel scad on the wreck of the Caribsea off the coast of North Carolina. / Photo: Tanya Houppermans
Redefining sand tiger research
One of the benefits of Spot A Shark is that no physical tagging is necessary to track individual sharks. Once divers or researchers submit images of a shark, researchers use Wildbook’s tools to map the spots along the sides of the shark. This is known as a “spot map.” Once it is assigned to a specific shark, Wildbook’s AI algorithms can use it to match photos of new sharks to those previously stored in the Wildbook photo library for comparison.
"As a conservation biologist, I love that it’s completely non-invasive, being able to study these animals and never having to bother them and touch them,” says Dr. Carol Price, Conservation Research Coordinator at NC Aquariums, who manages the Spot A Shark platform. “While there's evidence that suggests that the presence of divers can have some short-term impacts on sharks and their behaviors, it's certainly not as impactful as being caught on a hook and handled at the surface. Especially for these big offshore large predators that can be challenging and expensive to study, this is an amazing opportunity. Wildbook has been wonderful to work with, including being able to set up this platform where anybody from the recreational SCUBA diving community can participate.”
One of the most rewarding parts of Dr. Price’s work with Spot A Shark has been the opportunity to mentor students, seeding a new generation of scientists and conservationists. “I can train students to do this work in a couple of weeks, and have mentored 20+ students. It teaches them so many things,” says Dr. Price.
Mikayla Beeson, a Research Technician for Spot A Shark and recent graduate of North Carolina State University, spent time in Dr. Price’s lab mapping spatial distributions of sand tigers on popular diving wrecks and studying their habitat use and reproductive ecology. She used the platform to document her observations of potential overwintering sites for female sharks, and how the distribution of 466 sharks on a shipwreck changed in the presence of a male great white shark. Knowledge of how sand tigers use marine habitats and respond to threats is vital to implementing management plans for the species.
Beeson emphasized how the platform also benefits from the recreational diving community: “We send interns to dive shops to teach divers about Spot A Shark, and close the gap [in data collection],” she said. “Divers are very interested. They like sharing photos and getting to name their sharks.”
“There’s jaw-dropping enthusiasm for citizen scientists to share their information,” shared Duane Gabor, a qualified master dive instructor, and major contributor to Spot A Shark - noting the potential to galvanize even more contributions through gamification of the platform. “People are highly competitive. From a conservation standpoint, you have no problem with citizen scientists contributing to this.”
Some citizen scientists have obtained local funding to fuel their contributions to Spot A Shark. Larry Weatherall, a member of the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center (VAMSC) Volunteer Dive Team, learned about Spot A Shark from an ad in a local dive shop, after which he began contributing dozens of photos and videos to the platform. Weatherall’s work subsequently attracted the attention of the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center (VAMSC) Volunteer League. The VAMSC Volunteer League has since funded two annual dives for Weatherall’s team to collect sand tiger shark images for Spot A Shark.
Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Volunteer League Dive Team in North Carolina for a dive with the Olympus Dive Center, September 2024 / Photo: Larry Weatherall
Since divers provide the majority of images to Spot A Shark, data is skewed toward warm months and popular dive spots. Dr. Erin Burge, Professor of Marine Science at Coastal Carolina University, is therefore another critical collaborator for Spot A Shark. He collaborates with Explore.org on Shark Cam, a solar-powered underwater camera located at Frying Pan Tower, 34 miles offshore of Cape Fear, North Carolina. The camera provides continuous daytime footage of sharks, and serves as one of Spot A Shark’s main data streams. The cam has captured images of hundreds of new individuals who had never been observed before. Dr. Burge’s students comb through the cam video files, extracting screen shots of sand tigers that are uploaded for spot mapping. Nearly 500 sand tigers have been recorded at Frying Pan Tower.
Sand tiger shark and school of scad near Frying Pan Tower on Shark Cam. / Photo: Explore.org, Erin Burge
Toward stronger science and conservation outcomes
A population assessment is needed to develop a management plan for sand tigers in the Northwest Atlantic. Together with the Highly Migratory Species Office within the National Marine Fisheries Service at the NOAA, Dr. Price is exploring potential for population dynamics modeling for sand tigers as a data-deficient species. A population model could be used to inform critical habitat designations and considerations around shark fishing seasons and gear. Considering the pace of science-driven regulatory processes, she anticipates a timeline of five to 10 years needed to develop a management plan for the species.
Just as many people’s perceptions have shifted over time to celebrate and conserve whales rather than to fear or to commoditize them, Dr. Price envisions a similar cultural awakening for sand tigers. “Being able to have this data about this species, and getting people who live, dive, and fish on the coast to care about sand tigers can help establish them as a mascot for North Carolina,” she said. “This builds a conservation ethic within the community, especially toward a species that's often maligned and misunderstood.”
”We love that Wildbook is able to bring together a diverse community dedicated to conservation of a unique and often misunderstood animal,” said Tanya Stere, Lead Product Manager at Wild Me and Conservation x Labs. “That sand tigers can get this kind of attention and support means we are making strides in bringing conservation efforts to all species, not just the highly charismatic and those on the verge of extinction.”
In the future, enhancing the functionality of the Spot A Shark platform and expanding educational initiatives and partnerships with dive training programs will be critical for increasing contributions to Spot A Shark within the dive community. Gabor, an instructor across the PADI, SSI, and SDI scuba diving certification training agencies, notes the potential to mention Spot A Shark as part of dive trainings, some of which are ecologically oriented and cover considerations of hazards to sharks. There is also a desire to see greater funding to cover scientific dive courses for volunteer divers and other contributors who want to deepen their involvement with Spot A Shark. One of the instructors at a local dive shop, Dottie Benjamin, has created a course just for Spot A Shark.
The data gathered through Spot A Shark is helping strengthen the rationale for increasing funding for shark research. “Having Spot A Shark be so successful and what we’ve been able to learn through it has definitely increased the funding that the aquarium makes possible for other shark research,” said Dr. Price.
The movement for sand tigers is growing. Beyond North Carolina, partners from Georgia Aquarium, New York Aquarium, Virginia Aquarium, and Sea Life Aquarium Minnesota have also sent their divers to collect data for Spot A Shark. Researchers in Spot A Shark USA and Australia have exchanged knowledge on best practices and areas for growth. Research from these platforms will be key to informing efforts in other geographies such as South Africa, South America and Japan where sand tigers are critically endangered, mostly due to overfishing and bycatch. Adoption of the Spot A Shark platform in other geographies could allow for greater transboundary collaboration.
