Researchers are advocating for a "no-take zone" off the coast of Colombia after one of the world's smallest and most threatened hammerhead species was found to do very little traveling outside of a Marine Protected Area in the region.

A team of researchers including FIU shark biologists Diego Cardeñosa and Yannis Papastamatiou, tracked the movements of scalloped bonnetheads inside a marine protected area (MPA) along the Colombian Pacific Coast, where this species still occurs in high numbers. Using acoustic telemetry, a technique that tracks underwater movements through sound signals, they determined the sharks spent a significant portion of their monitoring period within the study area.

The research is published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.

"Using telemetry, we show these little sharks are very residential to small areas," Papastamatiou said. "This is bad news if overfishing occurs but good news for designing well placed, and enforced, protected areas."

Research typically focuses on the large, iconic hammerheads, but very little research exists on the scalloped bonnethead—the smallest of the nine recognized hammerhead species—which is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List. This new study provides the first insights into the movement behavior of the scalloped bonnethead with important implications for its protection and management.

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