BON SECOUR — Since the 1890s, Captain David Stiller's family has been involved in commercial fishing. Now, he is taking the family business to the next level in Baldwin County with Apex Shark Fishing Charters.
"My grandpa caught sharks in the fifties and my uncle was the top producer in the country for 25 years," Stiller told 1819 News. "We've been the top producers of sharks in the U.S. for the last 20 years."
Stiller has already caught record-breaking sharks, but he is also helping research one of the world's oldest and diverse groups of vertebrates. The apex predators are an important aspect of the marine ecosystem across the globe, and Stiller and his crew are ensuring they are around for years to come.
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The crew embarks on overnight fishing trips several nights a week. They keep long hours and work as long as the market demands. But they do more than that. They are involved with intricate and important research.
After a commercial fishing trip, Stiller unloads hundreds of sharks. Most of the yield will be exported to Canada, as they have been for 35 years. Some will go to Georgia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York. Very few will be sold locally to Portabella's, an Italian restaurant in Foley.
Stiller and federal permit holder Lew Childre partner with the Gulf Coast Research Lab and others to collect data on the sharks. They study the sharks' life history and growth.
"Nobody had any of this data before we came along in the Gulf," Stiller said.
The group is in the Sandbar Research Program with NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service to collect vital scientific data.
"We need good research," Stiller said. "We need good data on these sharks so they can make proper decisions in the stock assessments."
They are involved in collecting bull sharks of different sizes to be aged and analyzed for a study on their reproductive system.
Childre explained that the research answers many questions about the reproduction process.
"Part of the rehabilitation plan is to have research conducted to understand pup rates," Childre explained. "Like, how many pups does a female have? When do they have them? Where are they having them? How old are these fish? How old are they when they're sexually mature? What do their reproductive organs look like? What are their stomach samples? What are they eating? Are they eating healthy? What are their liver is like? So, there's a couple different things that they do and they actually take samples from these fish to allow for that."
The pair said the process is highly regulated.
"I'm a commercial fisherman and a lot of folks don't think we're about regulation, but we are," Stiller explained. "We agree in conservation."
"So, part of the Sandbar Research Program is to allow us to track them and facilitate a very small, controlled harvest with a federal observer on board to make sure that, one, that data is being recorded correctly, and two, we have a tracking system that's put on the boat to know exactly where we are and where we caught them," Childre added.
While they hear from environmental and animal rights groups that oppose their work, Childre and Stiller aren't showing any signs of stopping. They know their place in research is invaluable, and saves federal workers from having to do the grunt work.
"One of the biggest reasons that we're a part of that is to have communication and have open lines of communication and work well with the regulators at NOAA, National Marine Fisheries, to help build and help construct regulations that are both productive for the stock rebuild and good for the ecosystem and the species," Childre said. "But it also allows us to stay in business and is economically viable for ourselves."
Apex Shark Fishing Charters offers trips for anyone who wants to get a taste of what the Gulf Coast has to offer.
"I had a pair of socks on yesterday that said, 'We're going to need a bigger boat,' and we needed a bigger boat yesterday," Stiller said. "It seems like we always need a bigger boat."
"We'd love to be able to share this with the rest of the world," Stiller added. "We've been here 22 years at Bon Secour doing this but now we're actually able to take folks on a charter on a trip and let the rest of the world see how cool this is."
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