Category: Caribbean

🇨🇼 Papiamentu (English below) Entre Juli i Òktober 2022, nos a entrevistá 24 piskadó (semi)profeshonal na e isla di Kòrsou, ku ta forma parti di e teritorio Hulandes Karibense. Mediante nan disposishon pa kompartí nan konosementu ekológiko balioso, nos a logra haña pèrspikasia di peskería artesanal(tradishonal) di e isla. Tambe nos a haña sa kon…
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After the exciting news of the silky sharks on the Saba Bank two weeks ago, this time we move a bit Southeast from Saba to the Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius (better known as Statia) for another shark-story. Throughout Spring 2015 and Summer 2016, multiple observations were made of a, for Statia’s waters, undocumented shark species: the lemon…
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As we set out to the immense Saba Bank to do regular dives last Thursday, our captain spotted two small sharks at the surface. One glance at the surface and I realized these sharks were a bit more special than the regular residents, Caribbean reef sharks and nurse sharks. In fact, I soon started screaming…
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I am very glad and proud to announce that the documentary ‘Hunting the Hammerhead‘ is airing this Sunday on National Geographic in The Netherlands and Belgium. The documentary, presented by Craig O’Connell of the O’Seas Conservation Foundation, will bring you the true magnificence of the Great Hammerhead Shark (Sphyrna mokarran). Every Winter this largest species…
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It has been two weeks since I came back from a field trip to the Dutch Caribbean and now its time to look back and reflect on how everything worked out. The goal of the trip was to expand the existing network of acoustic receivers in the Dutch Caribbean EEZ and to catch and tag…
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Proud and honored that one of my photographs of a great hammerhead shark (Spyrna mokarran) was published in a book of the World Wildlife Fund (Dutch: Wereld Natuur Fonds). The book called ‘Aarde op 1’ takes its readers around the world in 177 photographs. The book pays a short visit to South-Bimini to get a…
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After our field trip to Statia, we continued our trip to the island of St. Maarten (SXM). However, our time here was limited, we had only four days to deploy an array of eight acoustic receivers and try to tag the first shark for Sint Maarten. Upon arrival at SXM we were met by people…
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Three weeks into my field trip to the Dutch Caribbean, the second island is ready to track sharks: St. Eustatius (or Statia). After Saba, which has had an operating network of receivers to detect tagged sharks for more than a year now, Statia has its own acoustic receiver array in place to track Caribbean reef sharks…
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As my passion for sharks expanded when I was younger, so did my knowledge that The Netherlands is not particularly known for its high elasmobranch abundance and diversity in its European continental waters. We do, however, have some smaller elasmobranchs like the small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias), starry smooth-hound (Mustelus asterias) and the…
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