Informative Speech on Ocearch and their Shark Obsession (Speech Presentation Sample)

Ocearch and their Shark Obsession
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Ocearch and their Shark Obsession
I have grown up on a boat and spent my childhood in the Bahamas. I have been scuba diving before I even learned how to ride a bike. While scuba diving, I criss-crossed paths with sharks but I was never interested in their lives. If anything, I was afraid that one of them would hit me! Now the story has changed. I passionately follow shark movements on my smartphone. Do you know why the story has changed? It is because a company called Ocearch has tagged numerous sharks and made it easy for people all over the globe to track the sharks along the coast. Ocearch is a non-profit making organization that has undertaken the mission to study sharks by tagging them and tracking them in real time. Today I will tell you how Ocearch is out on a mission to educate the world about sharks, inspire people and conserve the sharks. I will also tell you whose toes that Ocearch has stepped on.
My first point is to show you how Ocearch is educating the world about sharks. According to information found on the company’s website, ocearch.org, the company is on a mission to study sharks and provide new scientific data regarding sharks, their lives and their habitats. Ocearch has a floating at-sea lab from whence a team of scientists continually captures sharks, conducts tests and releases the information to institutions. The company has already rolled out a free curriculum that targets grades K-8. These children will at least be lucky to learn something about sharks that I and you did not learn. In an article written by Meite Ami of marketwired.com, Ocearch captured, tagged and released two young Great White Sharks along the Long Island in August 2016. The two sharks, male and female, are the youngest to be tagged and thus will provide more comprehensive data on the behaviour of sharks over a longer lifespan. Through tagging and tracking and through the on-sea lab tests Ocearch has been able to open up research on sharks.
Secondly, I will point out how Ocearch is inspiring the world with their shark mission. The inspiration comes through the debate that Ocearch triggers on social media as people track their favourite sharks. The company has developed Android and IOS Apps from where people interested in sharks can track the tagged sharks. Ocearch has also created dedicated social medial accounts for different sharks that trigger debate around the world. There are twitter accounts for different sharks such as MaryLee, Katherine, and Oscar among others. These social media accounts inspire different people round the world to talk about the tagged sharks. The debate involves the places where each of the tagged sharks was last seen and how far it has travelled. According to information available on the company’s homepage, these accounts created more than six billion media impressions in 2016 alone. Despite my childhood boat-riding and scuba diving escapades, I never talked about sharks with my friends. There was no inspiration towards that kind of debate. Ocearch has however successfully triggered a global debate due to their unique approach of studying sharks by tagging them.
My third point is on how Ocearch is helping to conserve sharks. Availability of more accurate data on sharks will boost conservation efforts. Specifically, new information will be able to reveal migratory patterns of sharks in response to various water pollutants such as ship corrosions, leakages and also temperatures. The company is also able to keep off commercial fishers from killing sharks because they will not know which one are tagged and those that are not. Through the global debate also, new ideas on how to better protect the sharks are generated further helping in the conservation of sharks. It is now your time, and my time to join the conversation and keep track of the sharks we care about.
Lastly, despite the Ocearch story sounding great, there are certain quarters that are unhappy with ...