Thursday, August 4, 2011

First Shark ID'd for 2011

Our first big spotty visitor to the Seychelles this year has now been identified! On Monday 25thJuly, Global Vision International (GVI)were out at sea conducting their weekly plankton tows when the unmistakable spotty shape swam by. On board was staff member and fantastic photographer Joe Daniels, who is trained in the art of whale shark snorkelling and ID photography having completed his whale shark internship with MCSS last year.


With a few of the team on board, he entered the water and, following the whale shark code of conduct, managed to snap a left and right side of the shark. Later, GVI sent the images on to us and we were able to identify the shark as sey.2006.054.



This shark is a male, estimated to be about 4m and was first seen in 2006, then again in 2008 and 2010. The shark hung around with the snorkelers for about 5 minutes before diving. He was accompanied by about 25 remoras (shark suckers who accompany large pelagic animals) and had no noticeable scars. As later this month will see our whale shark interns arriving, we hope our early visitor is a sign of a great season to come! Thank you to GVI and Joe for their encounter details and photos, great job! To see more of Joe’s spectacular photography visitwww.jldaniels.co.uk

1 comment:

judy said...

Oh my gosh! This looks like so much fun :) Good luck this season!