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FREDERICTON – Over four days on the water in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Heather Bowlby and her team from Fisheries and Oceans Canada tagged 15 great white sharks.

The animals are listed as endangered on the federal Species at Risk Act, and data from the tags will help Bowlby and her team answer important questions that can help with conservation efforts: where the sharks tend to live, what time of year they arrive in Canadian waters, and how old they are.

The team used seal meat to attract the animals to the boat, where a researcher then harpooned a tag into their dorsal muscles. She said that method is one of the least invasive ways of tagging because it doesn’t involve catching the shark, which causes the animal additional stress.

“They definitely will flinch when the tag anchor goes in,” Bowlby said in a recent interview after her trip, adding that she doesn’t think it bothers the sharks too much because the animals tend to stick around.

“You’d imagine, if they were very hurt or very stressed out by the event, they’d leave the area. But they don’t do that. Some of them stay around for hours. We’ve actually had to change tagging sites to get away from some animals, because they wouldn’t leave the boat.”

The animals were implanted with a mix of acoustic and pop-off satellite-linked archival tags in the waters near Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Que. Pop-off tags are named like that because they come off the animal after about one year, float to the surface of the water and begin emitting signals to a satellite. The tags record depth, temperature and light level, giving researchers an idea of the location of the animal.

Acoustic tags don’t record any data; rather, they send a coded signal allowing researchers to identify the shark associated with a tag when the animal swims within range of one of the 6,900 receivers around the Bay of Fundy, Atlantic coast, Gulf of St. Lawrence and surrounding areas, Bowlby said.

Acoustic tags, which can last up to 10 years, help scientists answer questions on the time of year the animals come to Canada, what parts of the region they prefer, and whether they return year after year.

Bowlby described the animals as shy yet curious. “They have excellent senses, and they tend to investigate things they don’t understand. They’re actually surprisingly cautious as well.”

Most of the great white shark’s senses are concentrated around its mouth. Apart from the five senses it shares with humans — sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste — it also has electromagnetic and pressure sense.

And because they are curious but lack hands to manipulate objects, the animals use their mouths, which can, unfortunately, go badly for people.

Data from tags doesn’t immediately answer questions about what food they like, especially since white sharks are considered a “generalist predator,” meaning they eat a buffet of stuff, but the places they travel to can help researchers understand feeding behaviour based on what prey is found in the surrounding area.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s great white shark tagging program began in 2018, and this year the team tagged 15 in three days at sea, the most number of animals on a single trip.

Last year, scientists found on the beach one of the tags they had implanted in a shark months before. “When that happens, it’s a bit of a gold mine, because the tags themselves record so much more data than they can ever transmit to satellite,” she said.

“The satellite transmissions are limited by the number of messages that the tag can give to the satellite, but when you actually get the tags back, they have information collected at every … 10 seconds through the duration of the deployment.

“It was almost like finding a unicorn.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

HALIFAX – A second Halifax youth has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy earlier this year.

The province’s Public Prosecution Service confirms the 17-year-old boy entered the plea Wednesday, but facts about what happened were not entered into the record because a different judge will preside over the sentencing.

The victim, Ahmad Maher Al Marrach, was found badly injured in a parking garage next to the Halifax Shopping Centre on April 22, and he died later in hospital.

Court also heard Wednesday that the Crown has chosen not to seek an adult sentence for the 17-year-old, whose sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 12.

Earlier this month, a 14-year-old girl also pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, and she will be sentenced on Jan. 21.

Meanwhile, two other teenage boys — now 17 and 15 — are facing trials for second-degree murder in Ahmad’s death.

The accused cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

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HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia Liberal party is sounding the alarm over Elections Nova Scotia’s decision Thursday not to mail voter information cards ahead of the Nov. 26 provincial election because of a possible postal strike.

The party, which is trying to unseat the Progressive Conservatives, issued a statement saying the move is “unconscionable” because it will leave many voters without access to critically important information about where and when they can vote on election day.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill accused Tory Leader Tim Houston of planning to take advantage of a possible shutdown of the postal system.

“He timed this election when everybody was aware that there was a pending postal strike,” Churchill said in an interview, adding that the Tories had already used public funds to start distributing a glossy government pamphlet about improvements to health care before the election was called on Monday.

“It’s clear that he will take any advantage that he can get … It gives an unfair advantage to the Tories.”

Churchill said that if postal workers go on strike, the Tories will benefit because the incumbent party typically has more resources to draw from for communicating with voters.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers announced on Friday that its rural and urban mail carriers had voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if there is no progress at the bargaining table with Canada Post. The union will be in a legal strike position as of Nov. 3.

While campaigning in Yarmouth, N.S., Churchill suggested that many Nova Scotia voters aren’t even aware there is an election campaign underway because it started immediately after provincewide municipal elections and toward the end of a contentious federal election campaign in the United States.

“That gives an advantage to the team that has the most money to advertise,” he said.

Chief electoral officer Dorothy Rice issued a statement confirming that eligible voters will not need a card to cast a ballot. Instead, they can bring some personal identification or they can swear an oath.

During the early voting period, which has already started, voters can cast their ballot at any polling station, the locations of which can be found on the Elections Nova Scotia website. The specific locations used on voting day are also available online.

Churchill said the lack of printed voter information cards will make voting difficult for seniors and those with a poor or non-existent internet connection.

“Seniors not only depend on the voter information card to know where to vote and when to vote — and even that there’s an election — but they also expect them because they have gotten it every time there is an election,” he said.

“If people don’t know there’s an election, they’re not going to proactively go to (Elections Nova Scotia’s) website.”

Elections Nova Scotia is an independent, non-partisan agency, but it has a history of conflict with the Liberals.

In June, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge ruled that Rice had no authority to order the party to take down signs and stop distributing campaign literature she deemed misleading during a byelection last year. The judge ruled that she had misinterpreted the province’s Elections Act when she issued her orders and announced she would call police when the Liberals refused to comply.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

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