The “Shark Lab” at California State University Long Beach is looking to raise money to keep its programs running after a cut in state funding.
The program wants to raise $7 million as its money is set to run out by the end of June.
KNX News’ Margaret Carrero reported that the program first received state funding in 2018 due to an increase in the white shark population. She spoke to Shark Lab Director Dr. Chris Lowe about the programs.
“All these sharks started showing up off public beaches and the lifeguards were really concerned about public safety,” he said.
It wasn’t known at the time if it was safe for people to be in the water. The “Shark Lab” had all of the tools, but no money to investigate the white shark population boom, Lowe said. That’s when they started to receive state funding.
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He said that their research program and their education and outreach program combined make up the California Shark Beach Safety program.
“We tag sharks, we spy on them to see where they're spending their time. We've developed all these new techniques, we fly drones, we can look at how much time sharks and people are together,” Lowe said. “We actually have these techniques where we can take water samples and measure how much of their DNA is in the water and how much of their food's DNA is in the water and see if they're having an impact on the prey communities.”
He said the technology they're using gives lifeguards an immediate detection of tagged white sharks that are off their beaches.
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