It's not every day that people can go out, meet a shark close up, tag it and then follow its progress, but that's what Bermudian filmmaker Choy Aming is offering for a price.

After winning the Special Jury Prize at the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) for his nature film 'My Backyard', Mr. Aming joined with Island veterinarian Neil Burnie to start a tiger shark tagging project.

To help fund it, he is looking for companies and individuals for sponsorship.

It costs $6,000 to sponsor a shark, but along with adopting the animal, they are also given the opportunity to meet their shark in its environment.

The more sponsors they are able to find, the more sharks they can tag, which means more information for the researchers.

Sponsors are offered regular updates on their sponsored shark, and are even invited to join Mr. Aming in tagging the animals.

"It's not every day you get to reach down and pet a tiger shark," said Mr. Aming. In order to tag the sharks, they are first caught with rod and reel, and brought close to the boat only when they are exhausted.

"You obviously don't want an 800 lb shark full of energy and right next to the boat," said Mr Aming. "These are dangerous sharks. They're not as bad as most people say, but they can kill you."

After the shark is brought alongside the boat, it is cinched to a specially designed stretcher and brought on-board the boat, where it is measured and tagged, before being released.

He said the tag costs $3,000 and tracking time costs $20 per shark, per day and while Mr. Aming has already found several sponsors, including Lindos Markets, he's still looking for more.

"Every scientific project always needs more funding," he said. "We've got a bunch of local sponsors. Some are friends, some are keen fishermen."

The tagging project started last year, with the team tagging three sharks in a test run of the equipment.

"There's no manual for this sort of stuff. It's all trial and error. It took a while for us to get our head around the technology, but we managed to get everything up and running."

Now that the project is picking up steam, the team is starting to collect information about how the animals live.

"At first we thought there was a resident population, but we really don't know," he said. "From what we've seen, it looks like the majority are just wandering across the ocean and stop by here as a food stop. They take off as often as they stick around.

"From the ones we've tagged, two are sticking around Bermuda. The others are long gone."

Mr. Aming is filming the tagging process as a part of a new film project. "Making a documentary about the whole thing makes sense," he said.

Not all of the footage will be underwater though. Along with shark footage, Mr. Aming also intends to interview fishermen and researchers about the animals for the film, saying: "We're trying to get a complete picture of the shark situation," added Mr. Aming.

Mr. Aming estimates he's around 75 percent of the way through shooting the new project and added: "We're going to shoot to get it shown at BIFF, but there's also Wildscreen, which is a wildlife film festival they hold every other year in Bristol, in the UK," he said. "The biggest people in the world will be there, so we want to try to get this in. That's our big goal."

Mr. Aming said he has also been in talks with the producer of Discovery Channel show 'Deadliest Catch,' who said that he might be interested in doing a show about sharks.

"There's nothing set in stone, but we've laid some ground work. We've got about four or five irons in the fire — it's a little early to tell what's next," he said.

* Interested in sponsoring a tiger shark? Contact Choy Aming at 735-7873.