The sale of Guy Harvey Sportswear supports the marine resource in many different ways with its sale of each Guy Harvey product, a contribution is made to the GHOF
During the spring sampling season, three ongoing projects of the Florida Program for Shark Research at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History, one in collaboration with researchers from Florida State University (FSU), focused on the distribution and movements of adult and subadult sawfishes in the southern portion of its Florida range.
We produced a survey of the waters surrounding U.S. Navy properties in the Key West region in order to determine the current status of sawfishes in those areas for the U.S. Navy/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Because of obvious security constraints, we were the first fish biologists to sample in these waters in decades.
Concurrently, in conjunction with Dean Grubbs and fellow FSU scientists and the John Carlson of the National Marine Fisheries Service, we sampled the middle and lower Keys and Tortugas region and Florida Bay, catching and satellite tagging eleven sawfishes. Satellite tags give long time and distance of movement information and we hope our tagging will help us better understand seasonal horizontal (up and down the coast) and vertical (depth) movements of the critters.
We also caught and multiple tagged two large adults in Florida Bay, the tags being traditional “spaghetti,” satellite, and active acoustic models. The last allowed us to manually track the minute to minute movements using a receiver held under the boat. Our first saw was “lost” within the first hour or so as it gave us the slip by scooting over a shallow bank, then boogying before we could detect its signal. Having learned our lesson, on our second capture we got in 38 hours of tracking over three days, including day-night comparisons. The sawfish moved about in deeper channels by day, then moved onto shallow, seagrass beds by night. It chose the same shallow grassy area on successive nights, demonstrating some short-term site fidelity. Next spring we plan to initiate placement of underwater listening stations on the bottom and tag the sawfishes with passive acoustic tags. These tags will leave a unique “bleep” on any receiver as the sawfish swims near, allowing us to track localized movements over longer periods and larger areas. We also will continue to satellite tag these and other sawfishes.
While sampling for sawfishes we also caught many sharks and rays. All of these animals also were measured, sexed, sampled (tissue for DNA) and tagged as part of ongoing studies of their biology and movement patterns. We also continued our work in Indian River Lagoon (IRL), where we began tagging young bull sharks with spaghetti and passive acoustic tags in a “new” region for us, the St. Lucie River estuary. This work is being done with our colleague, David Snyder, of Continental Shelf Associates. We also continue to download data from our underwater array of receivers in Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River and the northern IRL, where tagged bull sharks and rays still roam.
During this time period we put 5000 miles in land travel on the Guy Harvey adorned Hell’s Bay and God only knows how many sea miles on our faithful vessel!
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
This 44' x 24' Guy Harvey mural now adorns the new Surf Style parking garage in Clearwater Beach, FL with the grand opening of the new Surf Style locaction last weekend on Labor Day
A giant mural courtesy of Guy Harvey, the artist and entrepreneur known for his depictions of marine wildlife, now appears on the side of a multi-story parking garage overlooking Clearwater Beach.
The garage was built by Surf Style, a store next door which sells swim suits, T-shirts, beach balls, and other beach-related products – including many that are part of the various Guy Harvey lines.
The city passed an ordinance in 2005, requiring any development project which is $5 million or more to include a certain percentage of the cost for public art, according to Christopher Hubbard, cultural affairs specialist for the city of Clearwater.
The developers can do this one of two ways, Hubbard said. They can set aside 1 percent of the project cost and erect the art themselves, or they can give the city three-quarters of a percent of the cost, and the city will decide what public art project to put it toward, Hubbard said.
Surf Style chose to do it on its own. The amount allocated for the mural is $125,445.
According to Steve Stock, president of Guy Harvey Inc., the idea came up a couple of years ago at an expo. Surf Style has been selling quite of bit of Guy Harvey merchandise, and Guy Harvey Inc. has done a handful of murals – including one of the Fort Lauderdale skyline inside the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport.
The mural is as much an advertisement for Guy Harvey products – Stock called the mural a billboard – as much as it is a work of art.
The mural is vertical — 44 feet tall and 24 feet wide — and is about 30 feet above the ground, said Hubbard. It was approved by the city’s Public Art and Design Board after the board concluded it met the three criteria required – that it’s accessible to the public between normal business hours; that the work is done by a professional artist; and that the proper amount of money has been spent on the project.
The Marriott Residence Inn in downtown Clearwater was also required to come up with some public art, which it did, in the form of some glass artwork and prints in their lobby, along with a fountain designed by a California artist.
For the mural, Harvey first put together an acrylic painting on canvas. That painting will essentially be magnified into a vinyl strip that is of the same type used to wrap an advertisement or a public service announcement around a bus.
Much like the Fort Lauderdale airport mural, the one on the Surf Style garage depicts the skyline as seen from the Gulf of Mexico. It features Pier 60, and, in the distance, the Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach Resort and Spa, and the Surf Style garage, with its gigantic mural.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
Guy Harvey art supports efforts to the IGFA and NCMC in their "Take Marlin Off the Menu" effort
Marlin populations throughout the world are being wiped out by commercial overfishing. Concerned about the health of billfish fisheries, the IGFA and the National Coalition for Marine Conservation joined forces in 2008 to create the “Take Marlin off the Menu” campaign. In just two short years, the campaign gained the support of such luminaries as Wolfgang Puck and the Wegmans Supermarket chain – as well as the attention of U.S. policymakers. Their support hinged largely on an Economic Analysis of International Billfish Markets which shows that the economic value of the U.S. billfish trade is almost nil in relation to the rest of the U.S. commercial fishing industry.
This new marlin artwork from Guy Harvey was created to support this important effort. It is currently illegal to harvest or import Atlantic-caught billfish into the U.S., but fish caught in the Pacific Ocean flood into U.S. markets in substantial numbers, threatening the survival of these fisheries. The Billfish Conservation Act of 2011 (S. 1451 and H.R. 2706), introduced into Congress on July 29, would close U.S. commercial markets to Pacific billfish, preventing their sale and importation (excluding Hawaii and Pacific Insular Island Area). In short, this important bipartisan legislation will help restore billfish populations and improve recreational fishing opportunities while concurrently creating jobs and other economic benefits.
Your support of the Billfish Conservation Act would close the U.S. to commercial billfish harvest, importation and sale. It would have a negligible impact on the commercial industry in the U.S. while helping increase the abundance of these important apex predators as well as the value of the recreational fishery, which brings in billions of dollars annually but has a minimal impact on billfish populations.
To learn how you can help support this important Take Marlin off the Menu effort please contact the IGFA at www.IGFA.org or NCMC www.savethefish.org
— Bill
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
As some of you know, over the past ~3 months, we have been developing web sites to showcase the unprecedented results we are getting from the shark tracking research of the GHRI/GHOF/NSUOC and our partners. I am pleased to announce that we are now ready to go public with these web sites.
We’ve started with our tiger shark tracking results from the Atlantic and created interactive web sites that provide controls for displaying static or animated, long-term shark movements. The sites have several interaction options on the control panel on the right of the maps, and I think they are mostly self-explanatory.
To start off viewing these sites, please click on:
In the 2nd box in the control panel, select the shark “Correia” and click on “Animate”. That will start the animation (a 2-year track).
Based on the underlying programming, these sites are best viewed using the web browsers Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 9.
There are quite a few interactive viewing options programmed, including changing the speed of the tracks and viewing the tracks with and without detection points. Furthermore, when the animation is complete and the track becomes static, you can hover the cursor over each point to see detailed detection point information. If you are interested, please explore the various interactive options.
Logos of our sponsors and key partners and links to their web sites are provided. We are truly indebted to them for their critical support of this groundbreaking research.
We are still hearing from many of the sharks and their movements will be updated every 1-2 weeks as time permits. We welcome your comments and feedback for improvement, and would be grateful if you would spread the word about these sites. Like all web sites, this is a work in progress and we will continue to improve the cosmetics and information content as we make further discoveries about the fascinating migration patterns of these remarkable sharks. Web sites for our other shark and billfish species tracking research will follow.
The web site team is:
Matt Johnston (NSU OC)
Mahmood Shivji (GHRI/NSUOC)
Brad Wetherbee (GHRI/NSUOC/URI)
Web site development sponsored by the NSUOC and GHRI.
Best wishes,
Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
In what has become a veritable campaign of misinformation, Pew Environment Group issued yet another statement in support of setting annual catch limits on marine fisheries species without the benefit of science-based assessments. Taking the campaign to a new level, Pew is now revising history to make its points:
Holly Binns, director of the Pew Environment Group’s Southeast Fish Conservation Campaign, issued the following statement [Aug. 8] in response to the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s 8 to 5 vote to approve plans to prevent overfishing that protect dozens of species by setting science-based catch limits.
“‘The council has taken a forward-looking approach that allows managers to set scientifically sound fishing limits now before species suffer population declines. This proactive strategy is necessary to avoid what happened with South Atlantic red snapper, which is in such severe trouble that a fishing moratorium was needed in 2010 to save the species.’
“‘This plan will help avert steeper restrictions in the future, setting a course towards restoring a healthy, balanced ocean ecosystem. It is like visiting the doctor for preventive care, rather than waiting until you end up in the emergency room.’”
There are so many misstatements of fact in that statement, it is hard to know where to begin. For starters, there is nothing “scientifically sound” about setting catch limits without the benefit of a stock assessment. Those catch limits are going to be set by SWAG — scientific wild-ass guess – which doesn’t necessarily bother an environmentalist but does strike a nerve with anglers and others who actually use America’s public resources.
Second, the South Atlantic red snapper crisis came about precisely because NOAA Fisheries neglected to do a stock assessment for decades — the exact course of action Pew is advocating now for all marine fisheries. In a sense, the Council managed that fishery by SWAG and got it horribly wrong, so wrong that when they finally did do an assessment, they almost had to close the bottom of the entire South Atlantic to fix it. And ironically, if I recall correctly, Pew was very much in favor of that closure.
Third, as exemplified by South Atlantic red snapper, nothing about setting limits based on SWAGs is going to prevent managers from having to enact steeper restrictions in the future when and if an assessment finally shows them how radically wrong those limits are. And, in the most gaping fault with Pew’s logic, once the catch limits are set without an assessment, there is no motivation for managers to spend the money and resources to actually examine the state of the stock with an assessment. Red snapper became a crisis after the stock assessment. If they had never done an assessment — and NOAA Fisheries has shown a systemic reluctance to expend resources on assessments in recreational fisheries — red snapper would still be heading merrily down the drain, and no one would be the wiser.
Pew likes to say that managing this way is “preventative” medicine, and it’s better than ending up in the emergency room. In reality, they are advocating exactly the opposite. They are advocating that you never visit the doctor, never run any tests, never draw blood or have an x-ray. And by time you realize there is a problem, you go straight to the morgue.
That is no way to manage a fishery.
There are rational ways to manage wildlife resources that are employed all over this country. Anglers are seeking the same for marine species, no more, no less. But we are not going to get there by revising history and distorting reality.
Jeff
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
All of us, who have spent any amount of time on the water, have seen or at least heard some awesome fishing stories. One of the features we will now add to this blogsite is to utilize it in sharing some of our stories with you and to provide a forum for you to share your stories with us and the many readers of this blogsite.
My best fishing story is one that I was lucky enough to be a part of. It took place in Panama in 2009 when Guy swam down with my line and connected it to an already hooked up 1200 plus pound black marlin so we could get the fish tagged with a satellite tag. To read about this “Ultimate Fish Story” click here , and to see it on video click here. While this adventure with Guy will likely remain my most memorable fishing story, prior to this amazing event, the best fishing story I had ever heard was told to me by my father.
The story was about longtime family friend, Bobby Tidwell, catching his first marlin in Cabo San Lucas Mexico in 1956. Herb Bell of Packard Bell fame, owned the 100 foot Five Bells, named after the five Bell brothers, including the boat’s captain/ brother, Willard. As one of the very first boats to fish the waters of Cabo, the Five Bells played an important role in discovering this fishing paradise. Herb would invite friends to join him on fishing trips to waters of the East Cape and Cabo San Lucas. He needed talent on the boat to help ensure fishing success for his friends, and invited my dad Milt Shedd to join him in that role. During the trip to Cabo in 1956, Bobby Tidwell joined the group. An accomplished diver and expert angler, Bobby had yet to catch a marlin and was determined to do so. While trolling, Bobby hooked up to a striped marlin and when a second rod went off, dad grabbed the rod thinking they had a double. As both lines quickly came together, dad realized it was not a double hookup, but that one hungry marlin had eaten both baits. With the Five Bells now stopped, the fish ran towards the bow. Both dad and Bobby followed the fish and, when about the middle of the boat, the fish turned and ran directly under the boat and came up jumping on the other side.
Knowing there was no way to get to the bow to clear the line to the other side, dad tightened down the drag to break the fish off. To his amazement, he turned to Bobby just as he was diving overboard shouting “I am going to catch this fish.” Bobby is one of the most determined men I have ever known, but this was crazy. He dove overboard with rod and reel in hand, swam down to clear the considerable draft of the large boat and came up on the other side. Luckily, the marlin did not sound and was jumping toward the horizon. Bobby was being pulled behind the marlin, much like a water skier as the ski boat slowly moves away before accelerating to pop the skier out of the water. The other guys on deck looked down in amazement as Bobby yelled back to launch the skiff, which dad was already in the process of doing. The skiff was launched and Bobby Tidwell caught his first marlin. When asked later why he did it, Bobby simply replied “It was the only thing I could do to make sure I caught that fish.”
Bobby Tidwell passed away last year. While many people in Orange County, CA will remember him as the guy who gave the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) $30 million dollars in his will, I will remember him for the amazing fishing story witnessed and told to me by my dad when I was just a young kid.
If you have an unusual fishing story send it to me, Bill Shedd, at laura@guyharveysportswear.com so we can share it here on this blogsite for others to enjoy.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
Guy and Alex on the deck of the Kittiwake, posing in front of the Flag of the Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands’ newest artificial reef – the ex-USS Kittiwake – now rests 64ft. below the surface of Grand Cayman’s Seven Mile Beach. The sinking of the ship was an 8 year project and was sponsored in part by the Guy Harvey Research Institute.
The wreck is now open for business – and the diving is great! The ship sits perfectly upright and has already attracted a great deal of marine life. You can check out pics and videos at the links below, but the best way to appreciate this great new artificial reef is to come to Grand Cayman and see it in person!
Responding to last week’s announcement from the Government of the Bahamas that it will prohibit all commercial shark fishing in its more than 240,000 square miles of territorial water, Dr. Harvey commented: “I am very impressed and pleased that the Government of the Bahamas has taken the necessary and correct step to further protect its marine resources from over-exploitation by both local and foreign interests. This new legislation compliments the ban on commercial long line fishing enacted 20 years ago. The ban on commercial shark fishing and exportation by shark by-products is a huge step in the conservation of sharks worldwide.”
Through the Bahamas National Trust (BNT), Dr. Harvey met with government officials last March to add his voice and influence as a highly respected conservationist to call for strict regulations to ban the commercial fishing of all sharks in The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islands sweeping across 500 miles of open ocean. The Bahamas is the fourth country to ban shark fishing after Honduras, the Maldives and Palau. Estimates are that more than 70 million sharks are killed annually around the world.
One of the premier shark-watching destinations for divers, reeling in $800 million over the past 20 years for the Bahamian national economy, sharks, according to Dr. Harvey, were worth much more alive than dead.
“Many countries have seen their populations of sharks annihilated by commercial over-exploitation,” said Dr. Harvey. “Research has shown that shark populations do not recover. Other countries will take encouragement from the Bahamas’ very bold move. They are realizing, very quickly, the value of the living shark in maintaining the health of reef ecosystems. In addition, the economic value of a living shark to ecotourism is now widely accepted as a sustainable and non-consumptive use of a marine resource with many additional benefits to respective island nations.”
Last year, following news that a Bahamian seafood company was considering exporting sharks to the Far East, the BNT along with the U.S. based Pew Environmental Group and individual conservationists, such as Dr. Guy Harvey, who created a “Protect Bahamian Sharks” campaign logo and poster, initiated a petition drive to force the issue of banning commercial shark-fishing. The government upon receiving a petition signed by 5,000 Bahamian residents acted this week to protect the some 40 sharks species found in Bahamian waters.
With shark populations around the world continuing to spiral downward, marine scientists such as Dr. Guy Harvey, are working around the clock to give these magnificent animals a fighting chance for survival. Dr. Harvey is also seeding cultural change in the structure of shark fishing tournaments to creating Catch and Release divisions.
Last month, he brought his cause into the epicenter of one of the nation’s oldest and largest shark fishing tournaments in Ocean City, Maryland. Thanks in part to his efforts and a willingness to continue to adapt by the tournament founders and organizers, The Ocean City Shark Tournament’s cash and prize package payment in the catch and release division increased to over $15,000.
In May, the Second Annual Guy Harvey Ultimate Shark Challenge, a catch and release only tournament, was held on the West Coast of Florida in Punta Gorda. The tournament, created as a model for catch and release only shark tournament formats, drew some 3,000 competitors and spectators and paid out over $15,000 in cash and prizes.
In related shark conservation activity, Dr. Harvey offered his artistic talent and foundation sponsorship funding in support of the recent Circle Hook Symposium held in Miami. The symposium, hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is an international gathering of scientists, resource managers and constituents convening to discuss the performance and use of circle hooks in commercial, recreational and artisanal fisheries. While it is legal to use a J-hook to fish for sharks, experts such as Dr. Harvey recommend using a circle hook, where the barb points inward and not outward.
The oceans just got a little safer for sharks, and conservationist, artist and scientist —Guy Harvey couldn’t be more pleased.
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear with a varied selection of shirts with fish, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation recently presented a $100,000 donation to the Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) at Nova Southeastern University during a ceremony at the new Guy Harvey Inc. world headquarters in Davie, FL. A significant part of these funds were raised from the sale of Guy Harvey sportswear. You may not know this, but you, the Guy Harvey customer helped provide these funds with your last Guy Harvey clothing purchase. Money is raised for ocean conservation efforts from the sale of every Guy Harvey shirt, Guy Harvey sandal, Guy Harvey hat, Guy Harvey belt, Guy Harvey jacket and all Guy Harvey clothing items. This $100,000 will be used to support the ongoing fishery research projects at the GHRI.
Photo, from left to right: Dr. Mahmood Shivji, Director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute; Guy Harvey; Dr. George Hanbury II, President & COO of NSU; Steve Stock, President of Guy Harvey Inc. and the GHOF; John Santulli, VP Facilities Management, NSU; Dr. Richard Dodge, Dean of NSU’s Oceanographic Center
For a complete list of our other featured blog posts and to see the full line of Guy Harvey Sportswear, please visit:www.guyharveysportswear.com
I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
Concurrently, in conjunction with Dean Grubbs and fellow FSU scientists and the John Carlson of the National Marine Fisheries Service, we sampled the middle and lower Keys and Tortugas region and Florida Bay, catching and satellite tagging eleven sawfishes. Satellite tags give long time and distance of movement information and we hope our tagging will help us better understand seasonal horizontal (up and down the coast) and vertical (depth) movements of the critters.
While sampling for sawfishes we also caught many sharks and rays. All of these animals also were measured, sexed, sampled (tissue for DNA) and tagged as part of ongoing studies of their biology and movement patterns. We also continued our work in Indian River Lagoon (IRL), where we began tagging young bull sharks with spaghetti and passive acoustic tags in a “new” region for us, the St. Lucie River estuary. This work is being done with our colleague, David Snyder, of Continental Shelf Associates. We also continue to download data from our underwater array of receivers in Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River and the northern IRL, where tagged bull sharks and rays still roam.
I would like to welcome you to the Guy Harvey Sportswear web site. Here we will feature my blog where I will report on expeditions, adventures, and various marine conservation efforts. We will also include various guest bloggers, videos and photos that I believe you will find interesting, whether you are a serious fishing or diving enthusiast, or simply someone who cares about the marine resource, loves living the coastal lifestyle, or just wants to learn more about Guy Harvey sportswear.
