We Now Have an Official Protocol: Introducing the GLSP Shark Sighting Classification System

We Now Have an Official Protocol: Introducing the GLSP Shark Sighting Classification System

The Great Lakes Freshwater Shark Search Project was founded on a simple idea: that the Great Lakes are large enough, deep enough, and connected enough to the broader aquatic world that the question of shark presence deserves serious, sustained scientific attention.

For a long time, that conviction lived primarily in the enthusiasm of our Shark Searchers — the volunteers stationed on shorelines across all five lakes, watching the water, logging what they see, and taking the question seriously when almost no one else does.

Today, it lives in something more formal.

We are pleased to announce the official release of the GLSP Shark Sighting Classification and Observer Response Protocol (Document GLSP-SSCO-001), the first standardized framework for categorizing and responding to shark sighting reports in the Great Lakes basin. Every report filed by every Shark Searcher from this point forward will be classified under this system. Every piece of evidence we collect will enter the scientific record through this framework.

Here is what it contains, why we built it, and what it means for the search.

Why a Protocol?

Citizen science is only as valuable as the consistency of its data. A sighting report filed in Traverse City and a sighting report filed in Cleveland need to describe the same event in the same terms if anyone is ever going to compare them meaningfully. Without a shared classification language, what we have is a collection of stories. With one, we have a database.

The protocol also does something less obvious but equally important: it establishes that not every report needs to be a confirmed shark sighting to matter. A Shark Searcher who watches the water for two hours and sees nothing has contributed to the record. A Shark Searcher who sees something they can't explain and files an honest, detailed report has contributed even more — regardless of whether that report ever gets elevated to a higher tier.

Science is not built from dramatic confirmations. It is built from careful, consistent documentation of what observers saw, where they saw it, when, and under what conditions. The protocol is the infrastructure for that documentation.

The Five-Tier Classification System

All GLSP sighting reports are classified under one of five tiers. Each tier has specific criteria, specific observer actions, and a specific abbreviation that becomes part of the permanent record.

#	Code	Classification	What It Means
1	USAB-1	Unconfirmed Surface Anomaly Class B	Single observer; brief sighting; no corroboration. Something was there. Write it down.
2	USAA-2	Unconfirmed Surface Anomaly Class A	Multiple observers or behavioral indicators present. Notify your Patrol Lead within 4 hours.
3	PSSE-3	Probable Shark Species Encounter	Physical evidence or expert corroboration. Full report; HQ notified; Science Liaison assigned.
4	CVSE-4	Confirmed Vertebrate Shark Encounter	Photographic or biological specimen confirmed by a scientist. Immediate HQ escalation. Preserve everything.
5	FGLS-5	First Documented Great Lakes Shark	Peer-reviewed, independently verified. Full protocol activation. The observer goes in the record books.

What Each Tier Actually Looks Like

A Tier 1 — USAB-1 — is the most common report and the most important one to file honestly. You're on the Lake Michigan shoreline near Sleeping Bear. It's early morning, flat water. Something breaks the surface about 150 meters out — a shape, a movement, something that doesn't look like a wave and doesn't look like a cormorant. It's gone in eight seconds. You're not sure. You file a Sighting Log before you leave the beach.

That is exactly right.

A Tier 2 — USAA-2 — might look like this: the person standing thirty feet down the shore saw it too. They didn't know you were watching. You compare notes and your descriptions match. Or: it comes back. Same area, twenty minutes later. You watch it for forty-five seconds this time and it's moving with direction. You call your Patrol Lead.

Tier 3 — PSSE-3 — is where the scientific record gets serious. You photographed it. The photo isn't perfect but something is clearly there. Or you found a tooth on the beach that doesn't match anything in the Great Lakes species guide. A Patrol Lead reviews it, escalates to HQ, and a Science Liaison is assigned within 48 hours. The evidence is now in the formal record.

Tier 4 — CVSE-4 — means a scientist has looked at your evidence and said: that's a shark. You call HQ. Not an email. A phone call. Everything you have documented is preserved under chain-of-custody protocol. The Science Board convenes.

Tier 5 — FGLS-5 — has never been issued. We are prepared for the day it is. The observer who files the originating report is formally recognized in every GLFSSP communication, publication, and historical record from that point forward.

We are not being dramatic about that. We mean it.

A Note on How We Talk About Sharks

The protocol contains a conduct standard that we want to state plainly here, because it reflects something central to who the Great Lakes Shark Patrol is.

Sharks are not threats. They are not dangers. They are not villains in a story about human swimmers. They are among the most physiologically remarkable animals on earth — creatures that have survived five mass extinction events, that have solved the problem of freshwater adaptation in ways that still surprise marine biologists.

The question of whether any shark species has reached the Great Lakes is a question about one of the most extraordinary animals in the natural world potentially inhabiting one of the most extraordinary bodies of fresh water on earth. That is a question worth asking with wonder. It is not a question that requires fear.

Every report filed under this protocol, at every tier, should reflect that.

Download the Full Protocol

The complete GLSP Shark Sighting Classification and Observer Response Protocol — including full tier criteria, observer action checklists, species identification reference, common misidentification guidance, and the GLSP Sighting Log checklist — is available to download from the home page on the Great Lakes Shark Patrol website.

If you are an active Shark Searcher, this document is now your field standard. If you are not yet a Shark Searcher and you want to be part of the search, there has never been a better time to join.

JOIN THE PATROL TODAY