Sharks Need Your Vote!

My ocean blogging colleague, David Shiffman – known as “Why Sharks Matter” on twitter and the blog Southern Fried Science – is in the lead for an amazing opportunity: a $10,000 blogging scholarship! You can vote for him to win here and you are allowed to vote once per day. I should mention that voting is very easy! No signing up for anything or putting any personal info down.

While he is currently leading with only 2 days left in the competition, only 4% separates Shiffman from the next contestant! What does your vote for David Shiffman mean for sharks? I asked him!

“If I won, the prize money would go towards my dissertation research, focusing on the ecological importance of sharks to coral reefs. I’ll also use the money to support our lab’s citizen science program, which has taken over 1,000 high school students and teachers into the field to learn about sharks and participate in an active research program. I’ll also adopt a satellite tagged shark in the name of Southern Fried Science’s readers, let them name it through a contest, and post regular updates about where it is and what it’s likely to be encountering. I’m the only ocean blogger among the finalists.”

$10K can a long ways for shark conservation and outreach if David wins! As many of our readers know, DSN and Southern Fried Science have a long bloggy friendship. I can personally vouch for Shiffman. He and his cobloggers at Southern Fried Science have been a force for the oceans and have raised thousands of dollars for conservation and ocean education in poverty stricken schools using their blog. This scholarship, should he win it, will go a long ways to help his doctorate studies in shark conservation but will also contribute to his extensive outreach for shark conservation and spreading love and admiration for the oceans via blogging and social media, but also the many face-to-face outreach he has with the public and schools.

5 Replies to “Sharks Need Your Vote!”

  1. Sharks aern’t the problem at beaches it is the humans. who rash and pollute the whole planet land and air and water!
    ‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster…
    When you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’ — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) Careful… to quote the Dalai Lama ‘you have to take countermeasures..’ when queried about his view on death of Bin Laden
    Personally I also do not forgive nor forget the wrongs of man but seek to counter them with all available means at my disposal… .. ‘You must be the change you want to see in the world’ Mohandas K. Gandhi Thanks to all who have signed! “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated… I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man” — Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948) Teach your children well… Stephen Stills “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it…always.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi

  2. Another finalist, Heather Cohen, is a grad student who’s research has direct benefits on human health and will help people suffering from autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. A vote for Heather Cohen is a vote for human health!

  3. Thanks ScienceRox! In addition to Heather, there is also an excellent paleobiologist, Jacquelyn Gill. I’d love to support them all but David is a long standing ocean blogging colleague of ours and we gotta go with him, especially being so close to winning it! But we encourage everyone to check out all the science bloggers, vote for the ones you really like and are proud that science blogging is making a strong showing this year!

Comments are closed.