Cownose Rays in the Chesapeake Bay

Along the East Coast of the U.S. there have been calls to develop fisheries for cownose rays since the 1970s, but the absence of viable markets has limited development along with concerns over the potential to quickly overfish the rays, which have among the most conservative life histories of any sharks or rays. Females mature at about 8 years of age and have among the lowest fecundities (birth rates) of all vertebrates, typically producing one offspring following a gestation of eleven months. More recently, unregulated fisheries as well as kill tournaments have been implemented under the guise of reducing predators on oysters and other commercial bivalves.

Dean Grubbs is a fish ecologist with interests in the biology of exploited and poorly studied estuarine and marine taxa. Much of his research addresses specific gaps in biological knowledge necessary for the management and conservation of coastal and deep-water sharks and rays. Dean specialises in the use of fishery-independent surveys to study population dynamics and the drivers of distribution patterns of fishes and to facilitate studies of life histories, reproductive biology, trophic ecology, and systematics. Dean has also tagged and released more than 10,000 sharks representing over 40 species during the past 25 years. He employs a variety of tagging and telemetry techniques to examine movement, migration, and patterns of habitat use and to delineate essential and vulnerable habitats for exploited, threatened, or poorly studied species.

Dean is a native of Florida; his early years spent fishing and exploring the waters of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico led to an interest in marine biology. He received Bachelor’s degrees in marine science and biology from the University of Miami and a doctoral degree in Fisheries Science from the College of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Dean was a post-doctoral researcher and faculty member at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology before moving to Florida State University (FSU) in 2007. He is a member of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Protected Resources’ Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Team and NOAA’s SouthEast Data Assessment and Review Advisory Panel for Highly Migratory Species. Dean is currently the associate director of research at the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab.