HMSC Science on Tap: Shark Moms on the Move: What We Hope to Expect When You’re Expecting

Speaker: James Sulikowaski, Director of Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station (COMES), College of Agricultural Sciences, Oregon State University

Topic: Where do pregnant sharks go while gestating—and how do they move from those habitats to the places where they give birth? Those connections are among the most difficult pieces of shark life history to observe in the wild, yet they are critical for protecting key reproductive stages.

Dr. James Sulikowski will trace the development of non-lethal methods for studying shark reproduction and show how real-time, non-invasive reproductive assessment can be combined with electronic tracking. By linking gestation, movement, and parturition, these approaches are beginning to reveal long-standing mysteries in highly migratory sharks and create new opportunities to inform conservation and management.