Shark Night!

Husband-and-wife team Damien Chapman and Debra Abercrombie are at the leading edge of a global effort to curb the illegal trade in shark fins. On Tuesday February 24 at 7:00PM, journalism professor Steven Reiner will host Chapman at the bar of the Stony Brook Yacht Club Your job for an episode of Science on Tap, the occasional series of informal conversations with members of the Stony Brook faculty.

Damien Chapman is assistant professor in the School of Atmospheric and Marine Sciences and the assistant science director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science. He will bring with him to the Yacht Club bar a bag of shark fins for the audience to share the experience of customs officials around the world – but especially in South-east Asia – who are trained by Damien and Debra to spot the fins of endangered shark species being illegally imported for shark fin soup – which can fetch $100 bowl in China. The shark fin trade – estimated to kill millions of sharks every year – is only one of the reasons for the drastic decline in shark populations world-wide. Damien Chapman will explain how this matters for the health of the oceans, why sharks don’t deserve their fearsome reputation, and will describe his and Debra’s experiences in capturing and tagging sharks to track their long-distance travels.

For more information or to RSVP, visit: www.aldacenter.org/science-on-tap/

Doors open at 6:30 for the event, which will be video recorded.