Whale Sharks - the book by Dr. D Rowat!!

Things may have seemed to be a bit quite on the whale shark blog over the last few months but behind the scenes there’s been a lot going, not least of which being David finally getting the long awaited book on Whale Sharks completed…

And so after many months of hard work and the input and contributions of a very great many people, the book is now rolling off the presses as we speak! “Whale Sharks – An introduction to the world’s largest fish from one of the world’s smallest nations, The Seychelles” is in A4 landscape format with a hard cover and has 128 pages covering general biology, Ecology, Research and Conservation.

Image wise it is copiously illustrated with 60 stunning full page colour prints and over 200 inset photos from a wide range of contributing photographers. There is also an Information section with details of whale shark programmes globally and while it is not designed as a scientific text it is fully referenced with a bibliography of the scientific reference papers for those keen to follow up on specific aspects.

The foreword is by Dr. Geoff Taylor, the author of the classic 1994 book “Whale sharks – Gentle giants of Ningaloo Reef” and this book hopes to continue the work that Geoff started by providing up-to-date information to the public about this the world’s largest living shark.

The book will be released in mid August with a cover price of £40, but pre-delivery is now available on-line through YPDBooks.com at a special price of £35 per copy.

We hope that you enjoy it!

Calling Red Sea Taggers!

Two images were recently sent to us of a whale shark with a satellite tag in tow sighted off Sharm Al Sheik on 28th May.

There was some discussion that it might be Sammy but this is unlikely as the tag is a towed format and Sammy’s was a PAT…

So if anyone that has been tagging in the Red Sea lately and thinks this is one of theirs do let us know and we’ll put you in touch with the divers that reported it!

Mr. Consistent Shark!

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!

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.

Whale Shark News Week!

After several weeks of little action on the Indian Ocean whale shark front, this week brought two pieces of news…. The first being that the first whale shark of the Seychelles’ 2010 season was sighted, and the second that the PAT tag attached to Sammy, the whale shark released from a Dubai aquarium, has popped up in the Arabian Gulf.

The first Seychelles whale shark for the season was recorded by volunteers diving with the Global Vision International project on Friday 4th of June off the ‘Lighthouse’ / Grouper Point on NW Mahe. The animal was around 5 metres in length but swam off before photos could be taken to identify it; everyone is now on the look-out for more even though this is early in the season….

The news about Sammy’s PAT tag was released by the Mote Marine Laboratory who have been acting as scientific advisors to the Atlantis Resort in Dubai where Sammy was kept in an aquarium for 19 months before her release. Mote Marine Laboratory are also closely involved in the husbandry of the whale sharks kept in the Georgia Aquarium

In the press release Dr. Bob Hueter comments that "After Atlantis staff tagged and released her off Dubai, the whale shark took a mostly westward path through the Arabian Gulf, traveling south of Iran and then curving southward to waters off the coast of Qatar, ending up about 348 km west of her starting point."

The PAT tag stores data based on light levels and dawn and dusk times that enable researchers to develop a rough indication of the shark's position thus allowing a track to be plotted.

The geo-location track of Sammy's journey after release from Dubai; courtesy Mote Marine Laboratory

Data from the tag on water temperature and depth, showed that the whale shark came to the surface at least once each day, and made dives down to 72 meters (the Arabian Gulf's average depth is 50 meters and its maximum depth is 90 meters.) Temperatures of between 22.6 and 26.8 degrees C were also recorded.

The PAT tag was programmed to release 100 days after deployment but released on April 16th after only a month on the shark; the reason for this premature detachment is unknown but is not uncommon for tags on this species.

Djibouti 2010 Results and 2011 Dates

Its five months since we came ashore from the Djibouti 2010 research expedition and we are now beginning to get some final summary results out from the Data, due largely to the hard work of Abi March (our current I3S Queen) who painstakingly completed the spreadsheet data entry and the sorting and matching of the photo IDs.

Multiple whale sharks are common in Djibouti; photo Hussain Al Qallaf

Overall there were 871 in-water encounters recorded with 96 individual sharks over the 11 days of in-water survey. Of the 96 individuals, 53 had been identified in previous years while there were 43 ‘new’ sharks. Of the 96, 32 individuals were seen on only one day, the other 64 were seen on multiple days, on average 5 days with one individual seen on a maximum of 9 days.

86 of the sharks were sexed with 81 (94%) being male and only 5 female (6%); sex was not established for the remaining 9 individuals.

A whale shark vertical feeding; photo Daniel Jouannet

During the first week there were a total of 387 encounters recorded with 80 individual sharks being identified. On average, 11 additional individual sharks were identified each day above those identified on previous days during this week with an average of 4 sharks leaving the aggregation each day during this period.

In the second week 484 encounters were recorded on a total of 66 individual sharks. During this week only an additional 3 sharks were identified above those from the previous days with an average of 9 sharks per day leaving the aggregation during this period.

This data is being further analysed to update the population estimates for this area and it is hoped that this will be available before the end of the Seychelles whale shark season (so around October).

The dates for the 2011 Djibouti expeditions have now been set:

December 31st - January 6th, January 7th - 13th, January 14th - 20th 2011

David with Abi and Ciara pondering the days results aboard MV Deli; photo Hussain Al Qallaf

We are organising this expedition jointly with DECAN, a Djibouti NGO and Megaptera an international NGO. As before, the expedition will be based aboard the DELI, a two-masted live-aboard dhow of 26m. Costs per person are Eu1150 per week excluding air-fares; costs include airport to vessel transfers, full board accommodation sharing a cabin on the Deli, as well as accommodation at the Djibouti Sheraton for the last night of each trip. Several post-trip excursions are available at additional cost, such as a trip to Lac Assal or to the DECAN Cheetah Sanctuary.

Ciara and Abi getting a fur fix from a friendly cheetah at the DECAN sanctuary; photo David

There is also the opportunity for an extension to work as a volunteer at the DECAN cheetah and wildlife sanctuary either before or after the expeditions; For further information please visit the MCSS web site and download the info sheet and application form…..

Fancy meeting lots of whale sharks over the New Year?

Sammy Is Free… At Last!

Sammy the whale shark has finally been released from the Atlantis hotel aquarium in Dubai.

The juvenile whale shark was ‘rescued’ on August 20th 2008 when she was found 'struggling in shallow water'. The hotel say that the shark was put in the aquarium for "medical care and observation" and that they would release her, but that release has been a very long time in coming.

In the intervening 19 months of captivity there has been a huge outcry from the public living in the region and from outside with a “Free Sammy” campaign on FaceBook and numerous articles written about the situation in local newspapers and featured on this blog.

It was somewhat ironic that the first Arabian Whale Shark Research Programme conference was held in Dubai in December last year, but Sammy still languished in captivity.

While Sammy’s ‘rescue’ and ‘recuperation’ at Atlantis was marked with great publicity and encouraged a constant stream of visitors to the hotel, her release was done with a significant lack of publicity, in an almost clandestine manner. None of the media or environmental community had been notified or were on hand to see the shark released and no pictures of her release have been published.

Sammy photographed in December 2009 with her pack of Cobais in constant attendance, and in close up her damaged and deteriorating lower caudal fin

Steve Kaiser, curator of the Atlantis exhibit told local media that Atlantis were pleased to be a part of research into this species and that Sammy would be tracked through a tagging programme to provide further information for the research community.

So let us hope that this is at last a happy ending to the story of Sammy the whale shark, and that she was not released due the catastrophic publicity her death in the tank at Atlantis would have caused. We look forward to seeing Atlantis publicise her location and movements over the coming months….

Migratory Sharks MoU Now In Force

The Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Migratory Sharks under the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS) came into force on the 1st of March 2010, marking the successful outcome of three years of hard work for many people.

The final form and text of the MoU was agreed during the Sharks III meeting held in Manila, Philippines between the 8-12 February, and was the third meeting held between member states of the CMS and interested parties to develop an international instrument to conserve migratory sharks.

Heated discussions during the drafting of the text at Sharks III

This process started in November 2005 when Seychelles, Australia and New Zealand proposed that an instrument should be developed at the eighth Council of Parties (COP) in Kenya. The first meeting, Sharks I was held in Seychelles in 2007 and saw the ground work laid for further development basing its work on the listed shark species in Appendix 1 & 2, the whale shark, basking shark and great white shark. It was hoped that this would be finalised at the next COP (COP 9 Rome December 2008) but progress had not been sufficient and a second dedicated meeting was held immediately after the COP.

However, at COP 9 the shortfin and longfin mako sharks, porbeagle shark and the spiny dogfish (northern hemisphere) were all added to Appendix II, thus adding species which were commercially harvested to this appendix and consequently potential species for the Migratory Sharks agreement.

Sharks II thus now had some new challenges to face with the addition of these new species. The primary aim of this meeting was to decide if this should be a legally binding ‘Agreement’ on a non-legally binding Memorandum of Understanding; it was agreed that this should be an MoU.

This brings us to Sharks III where the debates were long and at time heated. There were actually two elements that required much discussion: firstly whether the ‘new’ sharks species should be considered in the MoU, and secondly, the development of the Conservation and Management Plan (CMP).

After some very long debates the consensus was to include all seven currently listed species, but not to have automatic inclusion if new sharks were listed on the Appendices of CMS. This decision will thus enabled signatories to the MoU the possibility to choose species that are not listed on the CMS Appendices.

Delegates from Seychelles and Mauritius discuss the text at Sharks III

As ten countries were prepared to sign the MoU at the end of the meeting, this meant that the instrument would come into force on the first day of the following month, March 1st 2010. The Memorandum is now open to signing by any country that so wishes and will hopefully herald a new era in the conservation of this ocean ranging sharks.