October 24, 2014 — A nasty-smelling — and locally developed — shark repellent so effective it tends to leave humans gasping for breath has been given accolades in a report to Congress by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The project was funded by a NOAA grant that was awarded through Florida Keys Community College, as part of NOAA's Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program. The report prepared for Congress stresses the efforts being made by researchers in coastal communities to develop ways to reduce bycatch, whereby sharks, and other unintended species are caught up in nets intended for shrimp, or other seafood commercially harvested on long lines.
The two grants from NOAA has helped Dr. Patrick Rice and his research assistant, Brian DeSanti, to experiment with variations on the repellent theme, with the ultimate goal being the doing away with shark bycatch altogether.
The first batch was made from pieces of dead and rotting shark corpses, and caused such a literal stink on FKCC's Key West campus that it was moved to a storage locker at Anchor Towing on Rockland Key.
There it was tended to by DeSanti, whom Rice noted, has no sense of smell.
Read the full story at Keys News