James Sulikowski interviewed on ‘Bob Duchesne’s Wild Maine’ about all things sharky
James Sulikowski, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Marine Sciences, was a guest on radio station 92.9’s “Bob Duchesne’s Wild Maine” program on August 8, 2015.
A shark expert, Sulikowski addressed several issues regarding various shark species. He discussed the recent frenzy of media coverage of shark attacks, noting that attacks on humans by sharks are rare, given all the opportunity that sharks have to interact with people in the ocean. “We’re about a million times more lethal to sharks than sharks are to us,” he stated, and he quoted studies that indicate that cows kill more people than sharks do.
Sulikowski also discussed the biology of sharks, informing listeners that sharks have no bones. Even their teeth, according to Sulikowski, are fortified cartilage.
He described the various shark species found in the Gulf of Maine, addressing his current research on baby porbeagle sharks and mentioning UNE’s efforts to combat the underutilization of spiny dogfish.
Sulikowski also advocated for the protection of shark species and compared sharks' life cycle to that of human beings. He stated that because sharks grow very slowly, produce very few offspring and often don’t reach maturity until around 16 years of age, “by killing them for food, you can really decimate their populations.”