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COM Outlook . Summer 2012
NSU Overview:
Dateline: Health…Swordfish and
Sharks…and Golf
Jenny Fenton, a graduate student in marine biology at
NSU’s Oceano-
graphic Center
, is passionate about swordfish. After all, they are a top
ocean predator whose survival is vital to balancing the ocean’s ecosystem
as well as being an important food source. However, years of overfishing in
the Florida Straits, where America’s swordfish nursery is located, has de-
pleted their population to the point that longline fishing gear is now outlawed
in the Straits and juvenile swordfish caught measuring 47 inches or less
must be released. Longline gear uses up to 1,000 hooks strung on a single
line to catch large quantities of fish.
Fenton decided to make her passion a research project. Over the past
two years, she has been analyzing the survival rates of juvenile swordfish
caught by fishermen using rod-and-reel and buoy gear. Her research is the
first study of its kind. Of the 20 satellite tags she plans to put on the captured
fish, data from 16 have been analyzed. Five of the fish died within a day,
while nine survived without problems.
Fenton, whose study is sponsored by the NOAA Fisheries Service, will
share her data with the federal agency. Then it will be up to resource man-
agers to decide whether allowing swordfish anglers to sell their catch com-
mercially is worth the fishing pressure it would put on their nursery grounds.
Survival of the Swordfish
Jenny Fenton conducting her research.
Dateline: Health
Wins Telly Award
Dateline: Health
, the NSU Health Professions Division’s long-run-
ning cable TV program, was a winner in the 33
rd
Annual Telly Awards,
which is the premier competition for honoring the best work of the most
respected advertising agencies, production companies, television sta-
tions, cable operators, and corporate video departments in the world.
Dateline: Health
, which received its first Telly Award in 2008, was hon-
ored for its episode on spinal surgery options. “We are very excited
to be receiving our second Telly Award,” said Dr. Fred Lippman, who
hosts the program. “This prestigious accolade validates the quality of
Dateline: Health’s
programming and the impact we are making in the
South Florida health care community.”
Hammerhead Shark
Double Whammy
Identity confusion between a new and yet unnamed shark species,
originally discovered off the eastern United States by
NSU Oceano-
graphic Center
researchers, and its lookalike cousin—the endangered
scalloped hammerhead shark—may threaten the survival of both species.
According to an April 2012 article in the scientific journal
Marine Biol-
ogy
, the new lookalike hammerhead species has now been discovered
more than 4,300 miles away near the coast of southern Brazil. This con-
firms that the original finding was not a local oddity and that the new spe-
cies is much wider spread. The lookalike species may face the same fish-
ery pressures as the real scalloped hammerhead, which is being fished
unsustainably for its highly prized fins.
“It’s a classic case of longstanding species misidentification that not
only casts further uncertainty on the status of the real scalloped hammer-
head, but also raises concerns about the population status of this new
species,” said Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., who oversaw the new research