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Project Angelshark- conservation through fossil education


fossilsonwheels

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I was recently reading some studies on extant sharks to see if there was a way we could incorporate a more direct message about extant shark conservation in our future education programs. I was struck by the plight of Angelsharks and decided to make this special animal a featured species in next years programs. We have a great opportunity to bring some awareness to the conservation issues that these sharks face while doing our fossil education programs with Project Angelshark.

 

Carter and I have decided to donate a percentage of each paid education program to the Angelshark Conservation Network in addition to featuring them in the program. We may also do some T-shirts to sell with proceeds going to the same cause. I spent many years working in wildlife conservation and we wanted to work this idea into our programs which is difficult when you are dealing with fossil education. The Angelshark is the perfect critter for us to start with because they extend back to the Jurassic and we should be able to trace their history in the fossil record pretty effectively.

 

Some extant Angelsharks are critically endangered and they are not exactly the public face of shark conservation, even though they could be. They are pretty cute. We can make a small impact on the effort to save them by teaching kids about them. They are found in California and this helps us in our goal of connecting kids to modern species here through fossils. They are a specialized shark with some cool adaptations which makes them perfect for the education program in that sense too.

 

We currently have a possible Squatinadae tooth from the Jurassic and our lone STH Squatina tooth. We need to fill in the blank spaces between the Jurassic and Miocene but I think we can accomplish that over the summer. As a collector, it seems an attainable goal to put together a nice collection of Squatina teeth without breaking the bank. One of our goals in splitting the program into two presentations was to work in more modern shark families and a focus on Angelsharks fits that idea beautifully.

 

We are very proud of this idea and it is something we will repeat going forward. I feel like this is an excellent cause for us to take up and a wonderful chance to help the conservation effort for these sharks. I am pretty excited about this project. It combines some of my favorite things: sharks, fossils, education, and Carter's artwork :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I think I've donated most (if not all) Squatina from STH to the FLMNH collection. I'll have a look and see if I have any left in my STH micros. Tony @ynot may be a good source for these as he's picked through a good deal of STH micro-matrix over the years. Contact @MarcoSr as he and his fossil hunting buddy Mike might be able to provide some Eocene Squatina from the Virginia area. I may still have some Plio-Pleistocene Squatina from Cookiecutter Creek in Florida. I'm currently picking through more micro-matrix from that locality and can set aside any new ones that I find for you. They are not at all common here in Florida and much more rare than the ones found in STH where they are a pretty common component of the micro-matrix.

 

Sounds like an interesting project. Drop me a PM for more information.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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