TOOTH AND NAIL
On a bright, chilly October day off the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, 10 scientists gather around a 998-pound great white shark. They have 15 minutes to take measurements and samples before the shark will be released. They holler numbers to a woman wearing jeans, sneakers and a beanie, and holding a clipboard.
The woman is Fernanda Ubatuba, president and COO of OCEARCH, a non-profit that leverages partnerships with scientists, industry and citizens to pursue a host of scientific inquiries. Now in its 19th year, OCEARCH is best known for its interactive shark tracking website, where users can follow the path of a single shark or see an aggregated map of tagged sharks around the world.
It’s thanks to the shark tracker that the OCEARCH team knew there was a host of white sharks off the eastern coast of Nova Scotia last fall. So they followed their own data—from sharks tagged in previous years—to this spot at the mouth of the LaHave River, where they hoped to tag and study a handful of new sharks over the course of a 21-day expedition.
By the time I arrived on the second-to-last day, the team had caught and released eight sharks. (They had a permit from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans to tag up to 20
