Tomoko Moritomo's view of whale shark internship!

Join Tomo, our Japanese intern, who worked on the whale shark programme at Ningaloo as she describes life as an intern here in Seychelles; for the English version please scroll down...

磁石で引っ張られるかのように、あっという間に体は空高く引き上げられた。Microlight に乗った。正直、空中の乗り物は苦手だが、眼下に広がる風景は、緊張を一瞬にしてほぐしてくれるほど美しく、そして刺激的なものだった。

午前中の調査では、パイロットが特定のエリアにおける海況情報とジンベイザメをはじめとする生物の位置を記録していく。

The view from the microlight above the west coast of Mahe

飛行してすぐ、ジンベイザメを発見。その光景は、とても印象的だった。

上空から見下ろすジンベイザメと彼らを取り巻く大洋の対照的な大きさ。広大な大洋に落とされた一滴のインクのように小さなジンベイザメ。それは、かすかにその姿を確認できるほどのものだ。

　 私が心奪われたのは、そんなジンベイザメの小ささよりも、むしろ限りなく広がる大洋だった。豊富な栄養分を含んでいることを想像させるようなたっぷりとあ ふれんばかりの水をたたえた大洋。そう、ジンベイザメはその中で生きているんだ。当たり前のことかもしれないが、その光景は、ジンベイザメと彼らを取り巻 く環境の関わり、本質的なつながりを強く意識させるものだった。

船上で行われるCTDや プランクトン採集、サッキーディスクといった環境モニタリングから得られるデータの一つひとつは、ジンベイザメ（ジンベイザメの分布）と彼らを取り巻く環 境の関係への興味を大いに駆り立ててくれるものだが、上空からのその光景はその一つひとつの情報をより全体的な視点で捉えさせてくれるものだった。

今 年は、ジンベイザメがなかなか姿を現さない。セーシェル周辺にはもういないのか、それとも私たちの目の届かない深場に隠れているのか。彼らを取り巻く環境 に何が起こっているのか、正直私にはわからない。しかし、環境を観察することは、そのなぜに答えるアイデア（ヒント）を示してくれる。

午 後のフライトでは、ボートのために、ジンベイザメを探すことに専念。目をこらして探すも、なかなか見つからず、さらに雨も降ってきた。気分も下がり始める 頃、雨雲と雨雲の雲の切れ間から突然、虹の輪が現れた。それは、美事な円を描き、輝くほど鮮やかな七色。息を呑むほど本当に美しい光景だった。

こ れまで同じ状況下で数え切れないほどその美しい姿は上空に現れていたのだろう。しかし、それが誰かに見られることはきわめて稀なことだ。その瞬間に居合わ せた偶然がたまらなくうれしかった。予期せぬ自然の偶然の出来事に触れることは、体中にじわじわと染み渡るような暖かい喜びだ。

ジ ンベイザメと出会うということもまた、同じだ。たとえホットスポットがあろうと、私たちが水中でその姿に出会うということは、ジンベイザメが水面に姿を現 し、パイロットがあるいは船がその姿を確認できる場所にいる、そして私たちがそんな瞬間に居合わせる偶然の出来事なんだろう。

数え切れないほど彼らと出会っていても、それでも飽きることなく彼らとの出会いに心躍るのは、ジンベイザメそれ自身の美しさと、その出会いが自然の中の偶然の出来事だからだろう。

このプログラムを通して行った環境モニタリングやMicrolight からのサーベーは、より広い視点で対象を見ることの面白さを教えてくれる貴重な体験だった。

Tomo hard at work recording the afternoon whale shark encounters

My body went straight up into the sky like a flash, as if pulled up by a magnet. I was on the micro-light. To be honest, I don’t like any aircrafts but the view stretching out below me was so beautiful and exciting that it made my stress melt instantly.

On the morning survey, the pilot logs environmental data and the locations of not only whale sharks but also other interesting creatures in a particular area.

We found a whale shark as soon as we took off. The sight from the sky fixed my attention, there was such a contrast between the size of the shark and the ocean surrounding it. The whale shark was tiny like a drop of ink dripped into the vast ocean, so small it was barely recognisable.

I was so impressed by the ocean spreading out without limit rather than the tiny size of the whale shark, it is no wonder that the sharks live in it. It was this sight that has made me acutely aware of the relationship between the whale sharks and their surrounding environment and that they are essentially linked.

The data from environmental monitoring on the boat, such as CTD profiles, plankton tows and the Secchi disk had peaked my interest into the correlation between whale sharks (or their distribution) and the environment. However it was still just data to me, but the sight from the sky has put it all into perspective on a global scale.

Whale sharks haven’t appeared easily this year. Have they not been here or are they just hiding in deep water? To be honest I have no idea, but by monitoring the environment it allows my imagination to find possible reasons why.

( it shows me some hints / idea to find possible reason why.)

During the afternoon flight, we concentrate on finding whale sharks for our boat. The pilot and I had made every effort to find whale sharks but we couldn’t. To make matters worse, it had started to rain. Just as I was beginning to feel down, a rainbow ring suddenly appeared through a break in the rain clouds. It was a perfectly circular, vivid and brightly iridescent. It was an absolutely beautiful scene.

Undoubtedly these beautiful rainbows appear all the time in the right conditions but are rarely witnessed, being there at just the right moment made me so happy. It was so unexpected that I could feel the joy spreading gradually through my body.

To me encountering whale sharks in the water is the same as this. Even though we know where to concentrate our search, to actually get to swim with the sharks requires so many things to be just right, the pilot and boat has to be in exactly the right place at the right time so each encounter is still down to chance.

Even though I have a lot of experience swimming with whale sharks, I have never become tired of it and still I enjoy it. Not only because of their immense beauty, but also that I am part of one of nature’s chance encounters.

Big shark, small (?) David... who's not reading the encounter rules!

It is a great experience for me to be engaged in environmental monitoring and aerial survey through this programme. It has showed me the interest of keeping the environment and marine creatures in perspective.

A new COP on the block!

After the rather untimely modification of our new microlight last weekend a number of people had several sleepless nights trying to organise a rapid solution to suddenly being without an aircraft for the last three weeks of the season.

Local chartering of either fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, even with their generous offers of discounted rates, was simply unaffordable, but our pilot for the first part of the season, David Daniel, knew of a microlight available in South Africa and arrangements were made to bring the aircraft up to complete the season for us.

After just two days David had the replacement aircraft dismantled, boxed-up and had driven it overnight to Jo’burg airport for air-freight to Seychelles. Here the Air Seychelles / Aero-Link team made the impossible happen by getting both the microlight and 7 metre long wing on to the next plane out to Seychelles, arriving late Wednesday night!

The new aircraft is released to customs and the 'lads' take it to the hanger...

Customs at Seychelles airport were very accommodating and early on Thursday morning the new aircraft was being unpacked and re-assembled at the hanger of the Islands Development Company who graciously allow us to use their facility.

And so it was that 'many hands make light work' or in this case make a microlight as the team pitched in to re-build the aircraft that David Daniel had so carefully disassembled a few days earlier.

By late afternoon the work was finished and the COP had arrived! Resplendent with a yellow and blue wing the aircraft was ready to take to the air the following morning and hopefully find sharks for the team and our visiting groups, who had been waiting patiently since Sunday for some positive news!

A happy, if somewhat grubby and tired team pose proudly around the completed plane.

And so Friday morning dawned and the COP was definitely on the block when pilot Johan managed to get the team onto an absolutely perfect shark (which had been recorded in 2007) that stayed with them for over two hours!

The first whale shark apprehended by COP, a repeat visitor from 2007

In the afternoon Johan again showed that the COP had the pace to get the job done and delivered six encounters with four different sharks. And an interesting bunch they proved to be, thanks to the I³S programme and the diligence of the intern team! One had been tagged in 2005 and then photographed without its tag in 2006 and 2007; another was a 2008 shark, first seen on October 6^th (in fact this was the shark from which Katie had collected the copepods) and had been seen many times since; while the other two had been recorded in both 2005 and 2007….

So it was back to business for the team, thanks to the hard work and determination of a lot of people! A warm welcome to the COP!!

Quiet in Seychelles but storms brew in Dubai over Sammy the captive whale shark

Whale shark monitoring here has hit a bit of a hiatus as our microlight aircraft sustained some serious damage over the weekend and a replacement is being air-freighted out to complete the rest of the monitoring season. The lack of aerial support is severely hampering monitoring activities and pilot Johan is keen to get things back on track by this Friday if all goes according to plan.

Sammy the whale shark in the Atlantis Aquarium dubai, photo courtesy Free Sammy Facebook group

Meanwhile, storm clouds seem to be gathering over Dubai at the moment over the fate of a juvenile female whale shark that has been in captivity in the Atlantis Aquarium for over a month now. The shark was caught after fishermen who were collecting fish for the aquarium found the shark to be in trouble in shallow water behind a breakwater in Jebel Ali; the shark was taken by the aquarium to ‘recuperate’ but so far there are no signs of it being released.

The shark was named Sammy and local newspaper the Gulf News has described a ‘tsunami of support’ to have it released with a ‘Free Sammy’ campaign running on its on-line edition (click the image left). You can even download a ‘Free Sammy’ badge from the site.

Whale sharks in captivity cause very mixed reactions; on the one hand having these sharks in tanks does allow many more people to see them and thus serves a function in raising awareness. The very young whale sharks reared in Japanese aquaria have also provided some of the only evidence about neonatal whale shark growth rates. However, on the other hand these are free ranging wild animals that eat plankton and they tend not to fare well being kept in aquaria conditions. Of concern are the recent deaths of two of the captive whale sharks in the Georgia aquarium in the USA; such deaths do little to raise public awareness and only serve to increase pressure to allow these sharks to go back to the open ocean.

If you want to learn more there is also a face-book site for supporters of Sammy at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93869105312&ref=mf

Our first whale shark copepods!

When Mark Meekan from AIMS in Darwin asked us to keep an eye open for copepods on whale sharks we thought he was kidding as none of us had noticed them on any of the sharks we have here… but going through some front-on images (photo left by Tony Baskyfield) it seemed that they may in fact be on Seychelles whale sharks too.

Copepods are small crustaceans and the ones found on whale sharks look a bit like miniature horseshoe crabs. They are not parasites as such but can be considered more as commensals because they feed on algae and bacteria that grow on the whale shark's skin. The ones found on whale sharks (Pandarus rhincodonicus) are apparently only found on whale sharks and they aren’t able to move very far themselves and so get carried from place to place by their host shark.

Because whale sharks breed slowly, probably taking some 20 years to reach maturity, their genetic differentiation can be masked by the fact that sharks from different areas can move very large distances during their lives. By comparison, their hitch-hiking copepods breed rapidly and as they only occur on whale sharks their DNA can be used as a biological marker tag to differentiate between populations of whale sharks that visit different areas….. If copepods here in Seychelles have the same DNA markers as those from East Africa then it would indicate that the Seychelles sharks also visit East Africa, or vice versa…

So much for the science-speak…. What about these copepods on Seychelles whale sharks? Well according to Mark they are easy to collect “just wipe them off with a gloved hand or pull them of with a pair of tweezers….” OK sounds like a great job for Katie! Or not quite… Rather not quite so easily! The first shark we found with copepods seemed completely unfazed about Katie trying to remove them and in fact he seemed to think Katie was a large cleaner fish and appeared to welcome the attention… But come-off the copepods would not and a very miffed Katie returned empty handed.

More extraction power was needed and so on the next trip a pair of surgical forceps were secured ready for use, but as you probably imagined, the sharks on this trip were copepod free! Finally we found a young male shark with both a slightly curled left pectoral fin (photo right), as well as a nice collection of copepods on its top lip.

So Katie went into action again, this time successfully collecting three with the aid of the forceps!

Our first collection of whale shark copepods (Pandarus rhincodonicus); photo and copepods Katie Brooks

So, that’s the first of what we hope will be several copepod collections… We just need to find a bunch more sharks now so Katie can prove she is Queen of the Copepods, or is that shrimps to you and me?

Charlotte’s back and so are the sharks??

This weekend saw the arrival of our largest specialist group of the season (photo left) with Charlotte Caffrey from AquaFirma UK…. While we had been able to get our previous specialist group onto two whale sharks for some long swims, conditions were still ‘too good’ for many sharks to be around…. Light winds, calm seas and 20 metre visibility meant no plankton and no whale sharks!

After a formal presentation from David on Saturday evening the group was left with no doubts as to the fickle nature of wild animals in general and whale sharks in particular… Sunday morning dawned with light winds and a few scattered showers which gave micro-light pilot little to worry about apart from finding some sharks for Charlotte and her group! Stacey, one of the group members, was to be the observer for the morning with Johan and so the hopes of both the group and all of the intern team were on her shoulders!

Luckily Charlotte or someone in her group has the ‘whale-shark-mojo’ as Johan and Stacey found not one but two sharks within accessible range and so the group eagerly rushed off for an early lunch and to kit-up for the afternoon.

As the monitoring boat got into the area David saw a tail fin disappearing and a local taxi-boat confirmed that there had been a whale shark swimming around for a few minutes… Johan was overhead in the micro-light quickly but the shark had disappeared. After waiting for about 10 minutes David decided to run the first plankton tow and just as Luke lowered the net in to start the radio crackled into life with Johan barking directions for a shark! Although the boat rushed at full speed to the area the shark had again disappeared and so the waiting game started again… after a 10 minute hiatus David again called for the plankton tows to start and again as Luke got on the swim platform with the net, Johan called in another shark… a long way away!

The boat rushed to the location to find a small whale shark swimming leisurely on the surface and the first half of the group got into the water with the shark; after about three minutes Luke halted the first group and the shark was hand-balled to the second group…. and then after a similar period the first group were dropped back in and the shark hand-balled back to them until it dived away into deeper water.

The young shark that welcomed the AquaFirma group seemed quite comfortable with the company! Photos Luke Riley

First shark! At least they had all seen one! The plankton net was made ready once again but didn’t even get onto the platform before Johan called in another shark, a long way off back where the first one had been seen… This time it played ball and group two got in with this new shark while group one geared up to hand-ball it, but Johan had other ideas with another, bigger, shark surfacing some 200 metres away. It was rude to ignore it and so Tomoko took group one in with the larger shark and the two groups slowly started to head towards each other as the two sharks swam on a near collision course.

As the afternoon progressed we managed to get into the water with three different sharks and the pilot had sighted another two probably different individuals making this the most productive day of the season so far. And yes we did eventually get the environmental monitoring and plankton tows done…after almost everyone was too exhausted to swim with the sharks anymore!

Not all work and no play!

The last few weeks have been a bit trying for the intern team as whale sharks were scarce and so opportunities to get out on the boats to see them were limited, but everyone pulled together as a team and things went smoothly.

The key to the MCSS programme has always been public participation and while the interns have a number of tasks that they have to accomplish, both in terms of monitoring the sharks and encounters and doing the environmental studies, they also have to involve the public in these activities as much as possible.

Happily, the interns are a very social bunch and are more than happy to involve our guests in all of the activities. Sarah’s diligence in spraying down the plankton off the net into the ‘bucket’ (photo above left) soon captivated youngsters Amy and Harry although who was to blame for the spraying of half of the boats occupants was somewhat of a mystery!

Amy, Sarah and Harry disputing who was the sprayer responsible for soaking half the crew!

Tomoko, our intern from Japan, has become very adept at the environmental monitoring and has no problem with running the CTD casts to 40 metres or more (photo right), however we don’t seem to get many guests volunteering for this aspect!. During the last week of September, our first specialist group of guests arrived with photographer Tony Baskyfield from the UK and we were concerned that the scarcity of sharks would be a problem. For two days we had not been able to get onto a shark; although there had been some aerial sightings the sharks were only staying on the surface for very short periods and we had some very disappointed guests….

For the next three days the water was crystal clear (measured at over 20 metres with the Secchi disk), Tony and his group had some great dives with Dive Seychelles, but no plankton meant no sharks….. and then our pilot Johan located a shark off L’ilot and the team dashed off tout suite! Tony and his group had waited for three days for this new young male shark but what a treat they were in for, with over an hour spent swimming and photographing the inquisitive and curious new arrival.

Team leader Katie checks out the newest arrival to the Seychelles whale shark aggregation, photo Tony Baskyfield

David and the interns heaved a collective sigh of relief and hoped that this would be the start of a return of sharks into the area… the next few days will tell!

Alex Taylor's take on life as an intern!

On numerous occasions I have been asked to write something (anything!) for the blog. I’ve been chewing my nails for hours now trying to come up with something slightly outside of the box and not to mention a little bit witty. Turns out I don’t have much to bring to the table, so I decided to go back to basics and talk about myself, oh and being in the Seychelles for the first time…

I must admit, when I set off traveling a year and a half ago, the idea of heading to the Seychelles by myself seemed somewhat ridiculous. Not only did I expect it to be a bit of a honeymooner’s hot spot, I didn’t think I would be able to suffice on my backpacker’s budget. But here I am, getting involved in the Seychellois way of life and even more so the MCSS internship.

It has to be said, Beau Vallon, where the volunteer’s house is located on Mahe, has proven itself to be quite the hub of action. Not only does it have the famous Bizarre Bazaar on Wednesday nights, which gives us our weekly Creole fix, it also has some of the best snorkeling around, not that I’m bragging, but this is found directly in front of the volunteer’s house! And if that’s not enough to write home about, Beau Vallon is also home to the wild Tequila Boom, where you can unleash your dance moves every Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, not that I know this off the top of my head…

Alex (right) showing that there's more too life as an intern than the local night life!

The Seychelles have really exceeded my expectations, not for a minute have I felt out of place. I’ve been sticking to my budget by shopping at the local markets and buying the local beer (Sey Brew) from the dairy. I also have noticed a lot of other solo backpackers around town, which is refreshing to see; I believe this is because of another volunteer program on Mahe with Global Vision International (GVI).

All in all, I’m having an absolute blast in the Seychelles and would recommend it to anyone and everyone. All I can say now is, fingers crossed for a fruitful Whale Shark season ahead!!