Sevengill shark project with wildbook

It's one of the projects i am working on. It's about broadnose sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus) in USA and South Africa. I found that it will be a good idea to record what i am doing and explain better how Ocean Sanctuaries (https://oceansanctuaries.org/) with the wildbook (http://www.wildbook.org/) is helping on Shark Conservation.

The position i have is Pattern Recognition Expert on Sevengill Shark Identification.

But before i explain further what i am doing (the mark spotting, fixing the gender, and mark them as new individuals or match them with other same individuals), i have to say that it's an easy job if you know what to do.

And i am enjoying this because i already know because i have used I3S software before for the identification of individuals of Sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) in South Africa.

Now are these the steps you can see in the following video:

1. First of all, I have to log in with my credentials.
2. I am doing it by an area, so in this video, you see that i am looking for "San Diego" encounters.
3. I am checking what was the last "alternative Id" i have put, so, i can continue from where i stopped last time.
4. Then i am re-arranging the date because i have started from the oldest encounters and i continue to the newest encounters.
5. When i find where i stopped, i am entering the next in the row encounter.
6. I am adding the "alternative ID" so i won't forget what was the previous.
7. I am fixing the name and gender (if necessary).
8. If it has more than one photo of the same view (i.e. left), i find the better photo and i press the lines icon on the bottom-right of the photo and then i press the "Spot marking". (Here if an encounter has both sides i must do "Spot marking" on both sides before i do step 16)
9. When spot marking page has been loaded, i select the region (which is the head), if it needs i am turning the photo so it can be as horizontal as can be the head.
10. Then i am choosing the top of the 1st gill, the top of the eye, the lower corner of the nostril and the lower corner of the mouth.
11. After choosing all these, i must start to mark the spots (the black ones). I try to mark the bigger spots, or the spots which give like a sign (for example three dots in the row, or making symbols like a cross, etc), or big patches.
12. Then i press "Save" and "Start ScanTask".
13. In the page it is showing, i have to remember the number of the encounter (or write it down) and "Go to sharkGrid".
14. In "sharkGrid" i have to view the encounter and check the patterns if they match with other encounters in the same date or a different date.
15. I have to check both "Modified Groth" and "I3S".
16. If it's not matched with another encounter, i am returning back to encounter page and i am going to edit the "Identity" and create a new "Unmatched first encounter" and "Create Marked individual" with the code of the area (example: for San Diego Coastline i use SDC), the date of the encounter (example: 2013), and four-digit number (i use the four-digit number of the alternate id, example: 0045). So the final encounter ID will be like this: SDC2013-0045.
17. Now if i find another matched encounter, i open the other encounter on a different tab on my browser and check the date. If it's older than this encounter i did "Mark spotting" now, i am copying the "Marked individual number" of the oldest and then i am going to this encounter i just did "Mark spotting" and edit the "Identity" box and put the "Marked individual number" of the oldest. Then i choose if it was "Pattern Match" or "Visual Inspection" and i save it.
18. I am reloading the page, to be sure that the "Marked Individually number" is shown and i am pressing it to see if all the recorded encounters are shown inside.
19. That's it. Then i continue to the next encounter.

​I love helping with shark conservation projects.

​And i can't wait to see the results when i finish with the database.