After dropping some bait in the water and attracting a grey reef shark, Phillip Lobel pulls the creature – nearly 5 feet in length – up by its tail and takes a quick blood sample to test for contamination and stress levels. He then attaches a “critter cam” to the shark’s dorsal fin. This small video camera will record life through the eyes of a shark for two hours, before detaching and floating to the surface.
Upon retrieving the camera, Lobel and fellow researchers – including wife Lisa Kerr Lobel - gather for analysis. The critter cam footage not only demonstrates how grey reef sharks behave, but also identifies where they’ve traveled using underwater landmarks, such as reefs or discarded military jeeps resting on the sea floor. Lobel, director of the Department of Defense’s Pacific Equatorial Atoll Research Laboratory, studying military impacts on the environment, is particularly excited by the sharks’ sociability. “She (critter cam shark) caught up with the other sharks across a coral head,” Lobel observed during this 2003 experiment, captured by a National Geographic television crew. “They all look like females – no males.”
Sharks are generally solitary creatures which keep to themselves and rarely gather in groups. But Lobel, an ichthyologist and associate professor of biology at Boston University, has attended their exclusive social events. Between 1983 and 2003, Lobel studied grey reef sharks at Johnston Atoll, an isolated US military outpost 825 miles southwest of Hawaii, and observed something unusual: a congregation of 150 sharks, all female and pregnant. These largely misunderstood fish, supposed loners of the sea, have shed their reputation with a massive baby shower.
Lobel, a professor in the Boston University Marine Program and Department of Biology since 1994, is not your typical academic. He’s not at home in a classroom with a dry erase board and a projector beaming PowerPoint slides -- his classroom is the wild. He’s traveled to some of the most remote places on Earth – deep into the Amazon and Congo – and has studied environmental contamination at obscure military installations like Johnston. “Phil views life with a sense of adventure. He has done things that most people can only dream of,” says Gary McCloskey, a former project manager for the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (JACADS), who worked with Lobel for nearly 15 years before Johnston closed in 2003. Lobel first arrived on the island in the early 1980s when the Army was building JACADS, a chemical weapons incinerator; he had to measure existing contamination levels so authorities could determine what environmental impact stemmed from JACADS.
Lobel, who teaches coral reef ecology, scientific diving and ichthyology at BU, developed an interest in marine life at a young age. Growing up in Cleveland, he frequented the city’s aquarium and landed a student assistant position there when he was only 14. Sharks were an early fascination. Almost impervious to infections, cancers and circulatory diseases, they also heal rapidly from injuries. This prompted a research collaboration between aquarium scientists and a physician studying biological aspects of shark healing. “I was actually able to travel with them on an expedition to the Florida Keys, where we first started collecting sharks in the wild,” says Lobel. “That was the summer after my freshman year of high school -- before I could even drive.”
Lobel carried his youthful enthusiasm for the sea into academia. After graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1975 with a degree in Zoology, he attended Harvard and earned a PhD in Biology in 1979. He also did postdoctoral work at Harvard between 1979 and 1983, studying the behavioral ecology of fish and their feeding habits. In 1984, at the age of 31, he began working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. He remained there for a decade, building strong ties to the military throughout his tenure.
At BU, Lobel tries to impart lessons that go well beyond the pages of a textbook. Each summer, he takes 12-20 students to Belize to experience the second longest barrier reef. “For 10 days, you do projects on the coral reef and experience what it’s really like to be in the field and deal with weather, dive everyday,” says Lobel’s wife, Lisa, who met him at a Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meeting in 1994 and married him in 1998.
Lobel’s most novel project in Belize involves recording the sounds of snapper and dogfish as they spawn. He believes these sounds may attract whale sharks, which feed on snapper and dogfish eggs. The largest fish species, reaching 40 feet in length, whale sharks are Lobel’s newest obsession. “He’s trying to go offshore and play the sounds of those fish spawning. He’s seeing if he can get any whale sharks to approach,” says Lisa.
Between 1983 and 2003, Johnston Atoll was Lobel’s research hub -- an unusual spot for studying marine life given its extensive contamination. A mile and a half long island which served as a refueling station for planes and submarines during World War II, Johnston also served as a dumping ground for chemical weapons. Drums of Agent Orange, the Vietnam-era herbicide, rusted and spilled the chemical into the island’s soil and surrounding waters. “The sharks obviously had the potential to feed on fish with dioxin contamination from the Agent Orange stock that was left there,” says McCloskey, who directed Lobel to study how sharks were impacted.
While the military had dumped all kinds of junk in the waters surrounding the base – old batteries, spent ammunition and electrical transformers filled with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – Lobel witnessed a strange phenomenon. The coral reef surrounding the Atoll thrived, with over 300 different species of fish. “With a 12 mile military perimeter, it was a de facto marine reserve before there were marine reserves,” says Lobel.
Sadly, the fish around Johnston – including the grey reef sharks Lobel studied – are not given any protection today. JACADS finished destroying its chemical weapon stash in 2001, and the island was hastily vacated in 2003. “Everyone went to Iraq,” says Lobel, shaking his head in disappointment. “It's now been overfished and raped. It's the casualty of an interagency battle between DoD, the Department of the Interior, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.” Shortly after DoD departed the island, satellite imagery revealed that Chinese fishing vessels had entered the Atoll waters; the sharks have most likely been hunted to the brink of extinction. “He gets quite angry and he thinks people really dropped the ball,” says Lobel’s wife.
The bitterness recedes when the subject turns to family. These days, Lobel is looking forward to taking his children out to Utah, so they can dig up dinosaur fossils together. “He’s an absolutely devoted family man,” says McCloskey. “I think he’s in the process of raising his children to have the same sense of adventure that he had.” Lobel’s wife experienced that sense of adventure when she first began diving with him at the Atoll. “Phil would make me nervous. We’d go on dives and he’d say, ‘This is the time when the tiger sharks like to hunt, right before the sun comes up. See ya.’ He likes to torment you!” says Lisa. “But he likes to have fun and he gets real excited about science. The things we’ve been able to do are pretty outstanding.”
Upon retrieving the camera, Lobel and fellow researchers – including wife Lisa Kerr Lobel - gather for analysis. The critter cam footage not only demonstrates how grey reef sharks behave, but also identifies where they’ve traveled using underwater landmarks, such as reefs or discarded military jeeps resting on the sea floor. Lobel, director of the Department of Defense’s Pacific Equatorial Atoll Research Laboratory, studying military impacts on the environment, is particularly excited by the sharks’ sociability. “She (critter cam shark) caught up with the other sharks across a coral head,” Lobel observed during this 2003 experiment, captured by a National Geographic television crew. “They all look like females – no males.”
Sharks are generally solitary creatures which keep to themselves and rarely gather in groups. But Lobel, an ichthyologist and associate professor of biology at Boston University, has attended their exclusive social events. Between 1983 and 2003, Lobel studied grey reef sharks at Johnston Atoll, an isolated US military outpost 825 miles southwest of Hawaii, and observed something unusual: a congregation of 150 sharks, all female and pregnant. These largely misunderstood fish, supposed loners of the sea, have shed their reputation with a massive baby shower.
Lobel, a professor in the Boston University Marine Program and Department of Biology since 1994, is not your typical academic. He’s not at home in a classroom with a dry erase board and a projector beaming PowerPoint slides -- his classroom is the wild. He’s traveled to some of the most remote places on Earth – deep into the Amazon and Congo – and has studied environmental contamination at obscure military installations like Johnston. “Phil views life with a sense of adventure. He has done things that most people can only dream of,” says Gary McCloskey, a former project manager for the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (JACADS), who worked with Lobel for nearly 15 years before Johnston closed in 2003. Lobel first arrived on the island in the early 1980s when the Army was building JACADS, a chemical weapons incinerator; he had to measure existing contamination levels so authorities could determine what environmental impact stemmed from JACADS.
Lobel, who teaches coral reef ecology, scientific diving and ichthyology at BU, developed an interest in marine life at a young age. Growing up in Cleveland, he frequented the city’s aquarium and landed a student assistant position there when he was only 14. Sharks were an early fascination. Almost impervious to infections, cancers and circulatory diseases, they also heal rapidly from injuries. This prompted a research collaboration between aquarium scientists and a physician studying biological aspects of shark healing. “I was actually able to travel with them on an expedition to the Florida Keys, where we first started collecting sharks in the wild,” says Lobel. “That was the summer after my freshman year of high school -- before I could even drive.”
Lobel carried his youthful enthusiasm for the sea into academia. After graduating from the University of Hawaii in 1975 with a degree in Zoology, he attended Harvard and earned a PhD in Biology in 1979. He also did postdoctoral work at Harvard between 1979 and 1983, studying the behavioral ecology of fish and their feeding habits. In 1984, at the age of 31, he began working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. He remained there for a decade, building strong ties to the military throughout his tenure.
At BU, Lobel tries to impart lessons that go well beyond the pages of a textbook. Each summer, he takes 12-20 students to Belize to experience the second longest barrier reef. “For 10 days, you do projects on the coral reef and experience what it’s really like to be in the field and deal with weather, dive everyday,” says Lobel’s wife, Lisa, who met him at a Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meeting in 1994 and married him in 1998.
Lobel’s most novel project in Belize involves recording the sounds of snapper and dogfish as they spawn. He believes these sounds may attract whale sharks, which feed on snapper and dogfish eggs. The largest fish species, reaching 40 feet in length, whale sharks are Lobel’s newest obsession. “He’s trying to go offshore and play the sounds of those fish spawning. He’s seeing if he can get any whale sharks to approach,” says Lisa.
Between 1983 and 2003, Johnston Atoll was Lobel’s research hub -- an unusual spot for studying marine life given its extensive contamination. A mile and a half long island which served as a refueling station for planes and submarines during World War II, Johnston also served as a dumping ground for chemical weapons. Drums of Agent Orange, the Vietnam-era herbicide, rusted and spilled the chemical into the island’s soil and surrounding waters. “The sharks obviously had the potential to feed on fish with dioxin contamination from the Agent Orange stock that was left there,” says McCloskey, who directed Lobel to study how sharks were impacted.
While the military had dumped all kinds of junk in the waters surrounding the base – old batteries, spent ammunition and electrical transformers filled with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – Lobel witnessed a strange phenomenon. The coral reef surrounding the Atoll thrived, with over 300 different species of fish. “With a 12 mile military perimeter, it was a de facto marine reserve before there were marine reserves,” says Lobel.
Sadly, the fish around Johnston – including the grey reef sharks Lobel studied – are not given any protection today. JACADS finished destroying its chemical weapon stash in 2001, and the island was hastily vacated in 2003. “Everyone went to Iraq,” says Lobel, shaking his head in disappointment. “It's now been overfished and raped. It's the casualty of an interagency battle between DoD, the Department of the Interior, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.” Shortly after DoD departed the island, satellite imagery revealed that Chinese fishing vessels had entered the Atoll waters; the sharks have most likely been hunted to the brink of extinction. “He gets quite angry and he thinks people really dropped the ball,” says Lobel’s wife.
The bitterness recedes when the subject turns to family. These days, Lobel is looking forward to taking his children out to Utah, so they can dig up dinosaur fossils together. “He’s an absolutely devoted family man,” says McCloskey. “I think he’s in the process of raising his children to have the same sense of adventure that he had.” Lobel’s wife experienced that sense of adventure when she first began diving with him at the Atoll. “Phil would make me nervous. We’d go on dives and he’d say, ‘This is the time when the tiger sharks like to hunt, right before the sun comes up. See ya.’ He likes to torment you!” says Lisa. “But he likes to have fun and he gets real excited about science. The things we’ve been able to do are pretty outstanding.”
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