Nigel and Anna HusseyNigel Hussey, shown here with his wife Anna, holds up a satellite tag like the one he attached to a Greenland shark in the Canadian Arctic. The device detached and floated all the way to Wales, where it was found by Mari Williams.

'High-tech message in a bottle' travels more than 6,000 km

Call it a high-tech message in a bottle.

A satellite tagging device used to record migratory data that was attached to a Greenland shark in the Canadian Arctic in 2012 was recently found washed up on a beach in southwest Wales—just a short distance away from the spot where the wife of the researcher who planted it used to spend her summers.

“It’s really fantastic,” said Nigel Hussey, a scientist in the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research. “We never would have thought that after putting it out in such a remote place that it ever would have been found.”

A research associate in the lab of professor Aaron Fisk, Dr. Hussey - whose research is partly funded by the Ocean Tracking Network - studies the ecology of a variety of sharks and rays. A common method involves catching sharks and attaching satellite tags to them. Similar in size and shape to a microphone, the device remains on the animals for months at a time, recording a variety of data such as location, water depths and temperatures.

After a certain time, the devices are programmed to release from the animal, float to the surface and transmit the data to a satellite, which the scientists can access from their labs and get a more complete picture of the animal’s behaviour. However, not all the data is transmitted, so getting one back can be a potential gold mine, but extremely rare, Hussey said.

“We’ve never got one back before,” said Hussey, who has planted numerous tags in sharks and rays off the coast of Sudan as well as in the Canadian Arctic. “This tag never transmitted any data to the satellite,” he added, noting that satellite coverage in the remote area can be spotty. “It just seemed to disappear.”

The tag was found March 6 during a beach clean with volunteers on West Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire by Mari Williams, a project officer with an organization called Cadwch Gymru'n Daclus, or Keep Wales Tidy. Coincidentally, Hussey’s wife Anna’s family originates from nearby St. David’s, and that’s where she summered as a teenager.

“I’ve still got an aunt, an uncle and several cousins there,” Anna said. “In fact, Mari knows one of my cousins. They used to work on one of the tourist boats there together.”

Not knowing what the device was, but suspecting it might have been a shark tag, Williams – who has an undergraduate degree in environmental science – posted a picture of the tag on Twitter and tweeted it at the Shark Trust, a shark conservation charity. Simon Pierce, of Marine Megafauna Foundation, recognized the device and recommended she contact Wildlife Computers, the device’s manufacturer. She sent them the serial number, and the Seattle-based company traced it back to Hussey and connected the two.

“I just find the whole thing amazing,” Williams said from her home in Wales.

Based on the data they recovered from the device, Hussey determined it must have come off the animal in December of 2012 in the middle of the Davis Strait, between Baffin Island and Greenland, and floated all the way to Wales – a distance of about 6,000 kilometers.

The device was one of three planted on sharks that were caught by Hussey and his team while working on a government research vessel in September of 2012. It had been programmed to remain on the animal for 340 days, and although it only stayed on for three months, it still contains a wealth of information.

“This is the most detailed data we've ever had for a Greenland shark,” said Hussey.

Watch a video of Hussey releasing a Greenland shark shortly after it was tagged.

Mari Williams
Mari Williams sent this photo of herself holding up the satellite tag on the beach where it was found.

“Branching Out: the Roots of Student Success.” Donations to the Annual Giving Program by April 30 will count as gifts to the 2013/14 campaign, “Branching Out: the Roots of Student Success.”

Month’s end to close books on 2013/14 campus giving campaign

Contributors to the Annual Giving Program who make their donations by April 30 will be credited with a gift to its 2013/14 campaign, Branching Out: the Roots of Student Success.

Employees and retirees will receive an invitation to the donor recognition event later this spring, says development officer Mona Dosen. Facility Services will plant 50 trees throughout campus to commemorate the University’s 50th anniversary and provide a lasting tribute to the generosity of our faculty and staff.

“We want to make sure that all employees past and present have a chance to participate in this year’s campaign,” she says. “We know that our faculty and staff like to show their support for students, whether it’s through scholarships, a specific faculty or program, Lancer athletics or campus beautification.”

To learn more, make a contribution or pledge through payroll deduction, contact Dosen at mona@uwindsor.ca or 519-253-3000, ext. 4279 or visit www.uwindsor.ca/donations.

big beautiful coffee mugThis big beautiful coffee mug awaits the winner of today’s trivia quiz on awards.

University honours subject of trivia contest

To help celebrate the University of Windsor’s 50th anniversary, the University Bookstore is offering DailyNews readers chances to demonstrate their knowledge of the institution and its history.

Today’s quiz, the 40th in a series, offers one lucky winner a beautiful black coffee mug with the University’s logo imprinted in white. Also available in cobalt blue, it is offered for purchase at a cost of $9.99 from the Bookstore kiosk in the CAW Student Centre.

To enter, just answer the simple trivia question below. The winner will be selected at random from all correct responses received by 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 15.

Over the past 10 years—2004 to 2013—which faculty represents the greatest number of winners of each of the following awards?

  1. the Excellence in Mentoring Award, presented by the Alumni Association to faculty members who have offered personal, academic and professional guidance to students;
  2. the Governor General’s Silver Medal, awarded to the undergraduate honours program graduating student deemed to be the most outstanding in their field, in relation to their graduating peers;
  3. the President’s Medal, awarded to a graduating student who has made significant contributions to campus and community activities while maintaining a superior academic record.
  1. Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
  2. Faculty of Human Kinetics
  3. Faculty of Science
  4. Odette School of Business

Contest is open to all readers of the DailyNews. Send an e-mail with your responses to uofwnews@uwindsor.ca. One entry per contestant, please. Note: the decision of the judge in determining the most correct response is inviolable.

50th Anniversary logo

Grad’s choral work to set tone for Holy Week

Works by composer Allan Bevan, a UWindsor grad (BMus 1982), are at the heart of a concert by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Wednesday in Assumption University Chapel.

Dr. Bevan’s 2005 composition Nou Goth Sonne Under Wode, is a setting of the Passion story and the crucifixion of Christ. The texts are in Middle English and Latin with narration in modern English. This choral work is filled with rich choral harmonies and a dramatic score for strings, organ and percussion.

The program will also feature a work for string orchestra, To Morning, which Bevan dedicated to music professor Paul McIntyre, who taught him composition. Written in 2006 for a composition competition held by the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin of Moscow in celebration of Wolfgang Mozart’s 250th birthday, it claimed the member’s prize in that contest.

The April 16 concert, sponsored by the University of Windsor Alumni Association, is titled “Toward Eternity.” The performance begins at 8 p.m. and is preceded by a presentation at 7:30 p.m. by Bevan and Alberta composer Quenten Doolittle, whose work is also on the program.

Tickets are $20, $10 for students, available at the Capitol Theatre box office; online at http://windsorsymphony.com; or from chorus members—including Susan McKee, room 115, Music Building.

Odette alumnus John Simpson.Odette alumnus John Simpson has established a fund to give finance students experience in investing.

Alumnus gift to support hands-on investment education for Odette students

Students in the Odette School of Business’s finance program will soon get to see the true fruits of their investing labour thanks to a $150,000 gift from Odette alumnus John Simpson (MBA 1980).

Simpson, who is managing director for Ridgeview Capital Asset Management, has provided this donation to establish the John Simpson Investment Fund, which will give a select group of students an opportunity to invest real money under the supervision of an Odette faculty member and a team of three professionals.

The students will choose portfolio goals and make investment decisions as part of their curriculum, with generated income used to support Odette scholarships for students interested in finance careers.

Simpson credits instructors like professor emeritus Edward Rosenbaum for challenging him to learn as much as possible about finance. He noted that Dr. Rosenbaum’s was one of the most difficult courses he took and he continues to appreciate the mentorship Rosenbaum provided on his major project in the MBA program.

Simpson and his wife previously established the John and Maria Simpson Graduate Scholarship fund, which provides two scholarships valued at $4,000—one each for a male and female student—in appreciation for the excellent education he received at Odette. The scholarship fund recognizes hardworking and community-minded graduate students, especially ones coming to the MBA with an undergraduate degree in business.

Simpson has spoken to graduate students and undergraduates at the Odette School of Business on several occasions as part of Odette’s leader-in-residence-for-a-day program sharing what he has learned over his 35 years in the investment management business.