From tagging to bite archives: How researchers track sharks on Florida's Gulf Coast

From tagging to bite archives: How researchers track sharks on Florida's Gulf Coast Advertisement Updated: 7:22 PM EST Nov 11, 2026 Editorial Standards ⓘ Sarah Mankowitz Reporter From tagging to bite archives: How researchers track sharks on Florida's Gulf Coast Updated: 7:22 PM EST Nov 11, 2026 Editorial Standards ⓘ Sarah Mankowitz Reporter Researchers with Friends of Rookery Bay are tagging and tracking sharks on Florida's Gulf Coast to better understand their behavior and movements. Their first catch was a bull shark. "That’s the umbilical scar right there. So this is the young of the year. It’s healed up, but it’s not completely missing. This is a male," researchers said while examining the shark. Advertisement The team later caught a lemon shark, which underwent a more advanced tagging process. Researchers performed "shark surgery," placing an acoustic transmitter inside the shark to track its movements more precisely. "These are the acoustic tags. I'll make an incision in the belly of the shark, just wide enough to stick this tag in fully," researchers explained. The acoustic tags allow scientists to monitor sharks as they swim near receivers placed throughout the bays. "If this tagged shark swims within range of those receivers and the receivers hear the right signal coming off of it, it’ll record the time of day and what tag you heard," researchers said. While researchers track a lot, they don't monitor shark attacks. Leah Lendel, an 11-year-old shark attack survivor , shared her experience with sister station WBBH from June of last year when a shark nearly ripped off her hand off the coast of Boca Grande. "I feel something like bite on my hand. I start screaming, my mom starts screaming, and then I just swung my hand out, and then it’s all in blood," Lendel said. After making a full recovery, Lendel still wonders why the shark attacked. "I’m like, am I even going to have a hand anymore? Are they going to amputate it?" she said. Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida, manages the shark attack files, an archive of shark bite incidents. "It’s an archive of all of the shark bites that have been recorded that we know about, that have been in the news or that people contact us about. We talk to the victims and to witnesses, and we find out as much as we can," Naylor said. The shark attack files, which began 60 years ago with the Navy, now contain about 7,000 incidents. "We can start to see trends that we wouldn’t be able to before," Naylor said. Despite the research, shark attacks remain rare, and local governments do not track them. "In general, the counties, the state government, and the federal government don’t investigate it. It does have an economic impact, but only from time to time. But in terms of injuries to people, it’s a very minor problem," Naylor said. The research aims to better understand shark behavior. "We are curiosity-driven. We want to understand what makes these animals tick. And one of the things that they do is they’re occasionally implicated in biting people," Naylor said. As for Lendel, her experience has inspired her to study sharks. "I want to be a marine biologist and, like, go out with people and scuba dive with sharks," she said. Her goal is to find answers to the questions she and many others have about shark behavior. "Then you can see why they bite and how to prevent it," Lendel said. Make WGAL a preferred source on Google Add Preferred Source Share Infinite Scroll Enabled Top Picks JoBe Cerny, who voiced the Pillsbury Doughboy, has died Lessie Benningfield Randle, the last known Tulsa Race Massacre survivor, turns 112 They longed to hold their fragile NICU babies. A new device made it possible 106-year-old WWII veteran reflects on his service and provides life advice