Blog readers will recall that we posted news of the first Seychelles whale shark for the season a week or so ago; the shark was recorded by volunteers diving with the Global Vision International project on Friday 4th of June off the ‘Lighthouse’ / Grouper Point on NW Mahe.
Here is UT06-098a swimming off the Lighthouse on June 4th 2010, photo GVI
It was thought that the lucky divers hadn’t been able to capture any photographs but in fact two images of the right side were quite useable and matched a previously recorded Seychelles whale shark UT06-098a. This was a shark which was first recorded on the 11th of October 2006 off Baie Lazare in the South of Mahe by David and the MCSS team and seen four times later that year, consistently being identified as a 5 metre male.
After that, the shark was not seen again until the 3rd of June 2009 when a diver with the Underwater Centre photographed him off the ‘Lighthouse’… and here he is almost a year later to the day, at the same location… now that’s consistency!
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And here he was last year on June 3rd 2009, off the Lighthouse once again, photo Louis Beaubet
As the start of the monitoring programme nears, the interns and staff for the coming season are becoming increasingly eager to get into the water… hopefully our early season 'Mr Consistent Shark' is a good omen for the coming months.
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