La Jolla Leopard Shark Population Project

The La Jolla Leopard Shark Population Project is a newly formed research project run by the Southern California Bight Elasmobranch Consortium in conjunction with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Its aims are to collect vital population data on the local summer aggregations of Leopard Shark (Triakis semifasciata) in and around La Jolla Cove to discover amongst other reasons why they come year after year using children to collect the data.

This uses for this collected data are many, from a conservation perspective, its important to get an accurate assessment of stock numbers of the Sharks in order to make accurate well informed decisions regarding fishery status. It’s also important to regularly monitor the population to ensure that they are remaining stable as opposed to declining.

The La Jolla Leopard Shark Population Project will combine using the existing Summer Education Learning camps that are currently run by the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Aimed at grades 4 - 9 children will be lectured to about sharks in the Southern California Bight, conservation, and biology as well as providing them with a thorough overview of the data collection methods. They will then be taken down to the La Jolla Shores beach where they snorkel down a transect counting Leopard Sharks. Once finished the children are free to snorkel. This data will be entered through this website via an online form.