A new video captures the often painstaking efforts of a UWindsor researcher working with federal government scientists in the Canadian Arctic trying to establish new commercial fisheries there.

Arctic Odyssey – Bettering Society Through Science in Northern Inuit Communities documents a journey taken by Nigel Hussey, a post-doctoral fellow in the university’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, who spent seven nights in mid-September aboard a research vessel working primarily in Scott Inlet, a fjord off the Davis Strait on the northeast shore of Baffin Island.

Among other things, the 12-minute video captures Dr. Hussey performing surgery on both Greenland sharks and Greenland halibut – otherwise known as turbot – in order to implant acoustic tags used to track their movements. Some of the video’s best moments occur when Hussey is seen releasing live sharks back in to their natural environment.

Hussey works in the lab of professor Aaron Fisk, a Canada Research Chair in Trophic Ecology, and the two work with scientists from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans on tracking the migratory patterns of both fish. They’re obtaining the data DFO needs to decide whether a new commercial fishery ought to be located near Clyde River, a tiny Inuit community located about 100 kilometres south of Scott Inlet.

Turbot is a commercially important fish for northern communities, but Greenland sharks are often caught as a by-catch in the long lines anglers set on the ocean floor. Better understanding of the movements of both species could help commercial anglers fish more efficiently, while preserving the numbers of Greenland sharks, of which little scientific information is currently known.

Raw footage for the video was shot by Steve Fields, a communications officer who promotes research for the university’s department of public affairs and communications and joined Hussey on the trip. The video was assembled by Alisa Giroux-Souilliere, the university’s social media coordinator.

Watch it here: