Sharkgirl
Registered
Hello,
I am Christine Ward-Paige. I have been diving since the early 90's- when I was 15 years old. I got certified with my dad and brother, which makes for really nice memories except that I had a horrible introduction to diving- my first open water dive test took place on April 1st, the first day the ice broke in one section of a lake during a blizzard in Ontario- protected by a very thin 5mil wetsuit....given this very painful introduction its amazing that I got back in the water and have now logged over 500 dives in cold and warm water- and I still have not put on a drysuit!
Anyway, here I am sitting at a computer at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada working on my PhD dissertation. Believe it or not I study global shark populations from this desk. I may not do as much diving as I'd like, but I do get to live vicariously through you. You see, my thesis project is to estimate global shark populations from divers. I am trying to get EVERY diver/snorkeler that dives in the ocean to fill out my survey- even those of you that have never seen a shark (which would be many of you I suspect given the current status of shark populations!). I am also trying to show that divers can provide essential information about what is going on in the ocean. To date, most of the fish trends that scientists use, come from fishermen, but fisher's cannot provide information where fishing is prohibited- ideal places for divers!
So, I am happy to be part of this scubaboard forum, and I look forward to hearing aobut all of your diving adventures.
-Christine
I am Christine Ward-Paige. I have been diving since the early 90's- when I was 15 years old. I got certified with my dad and brother, which makes for really nice memories except that I had a horrible introduction to diving- my first open water dive test took place on April 1st, the first day the ice broke in one section of a lake during a blizzard in Ontario- protected by a very thin 5mil wetsuit....given this very painful introduction its amazing that I got back in the water and have now logged over 500 dives in cold and warm water- and I still have not put on a drysuit!
Anyway, here I am sitting at a computer at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada working on my PhD dissertation. Believe it or not I study global shark populations from this desk. I may not do as much diving as I'd like, but I do get to live vicariously through you. You see, my thesis project is to estimate global shark populations from divers. I am trying to get EVERY diver/snorkeler that dives in the ocean to fill out my survey- even those of you that have never seen a shark (which would be many of you I suspect given the current status of shark populations!). I am also trying to show that divers can provide essential information about what is going on in the ocean. To date, most of the fish trends that scientists use, come from fishermen, but fisher's cannot provide information where fishing is prohibited- ideal places for divers!
So, I am happy to be part of this scubaboard forum, and I look forward to hearing aobut all of your diving adventures.
-Christine
