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EditPhoto Title:Whale Shark Tracker
EditPhoto Description:Watch in real-time the world’s largest fish, satellite-tagged in eastern Indonesia
EditImage Url:/SiteCollectionImages/ci_24400754.jpg
EditImage Description:Mark Erdmann swims with a tagged whale shark.
EditPhoto Credit:© Shawn Heinrichs
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WE’VE LEARNED A LOT
In 2015, Conservation International (CI) scientists in Indonesia performed a first: We attached satellite transmitters to the dorsal fins of whale sharks. These transmitters had never been mounted on whale sharks because the species was simply too big to catch — so our scientists partnered with local fishermen who had inadvertently captured whale sharks in their nets, then dived in to attach the transmitters before releasing the sharks. Working with our partners at the Georgia Aquarium, we’ve learned a lot about the charismatic species, including their migratory movements and diving behavior — much of it new to science.
FOLLOW WHALE SHARKS IN REAL-TIME
Our fin-mount satellite tags have a maximum battery life of two years. Here’s what we learned from sharks with decommissioned tags.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/144883.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #144883 “Sharky McSharkface”
EditCaption Title:144883 “Sharky McSharkface”
EditCaption Description:This 4.5-meter-long whale shark - named in an online naming contest - is now a world-record-holder for the longest satellite tag data series from a whale shark: 25 continuous months. He stayed largely in Cendrawasih Bay and recorded an impressive dive of 1,288 meters (4,226 feet) - a depth that would crush a human to death.
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EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #153664 “Wally”
EditCaption Title:153664 “Wally”
EditCaption Description:During the 15 months his tag was active, this 6-meter male closely hugged the coastline of New Guinea, stopping for weeks at a time at the large river outlets he encountered along the way. He was likely targeting the baitfish schools that can be abundant in the coastal waters off these big estuaries. He clocked 3,800 kilometers (2,361 miles) during his 15 months of travel.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/158580.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #158580 “Kodo”
EditCaption Title:158580 “Kodo”
EditCaption Description:“Kodo” won the contest for West Papuan whale shark with the most stamps in his passport: The 4-meter-long (14 feet) male swam northwest to Palau, then to the Philippines, then back down to Indonesia, into Australia, then back to southern Papua, Indonesia. He also spent a majority of the past 9 months in a mangrove swamp and mud-flat region — not the type of habitat we usually think of for whale sharks.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/151097.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #151097 “Fijubeca”
EditCaption Title:151097 “Fijubeca”
EditCaption Description:At only 3 meters (about 10 feet), this male was one of the smallest but, interestingly, clocked the greatest distance: more than 9,000 kilometers (5,592 miles) since October 2015. Equally as remarkable, Fijubeca has visited eight of the marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Bird’s Head Seascape, reaffirming that these MPA’s nicely encompass the migratory routes of marine megafauna.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/144884.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #144884 “Blue Bandit”
EditCaption Title:144884 “Blue Bandit”
EditCaption Description:Blue Bandit was a frequent deep diver (recording a maximum of 1,808 meters, or 5,392 feet), and a long-distance traveler — leaving Cendrawasih Bay, travelling north to Palau and then down through Raja Ampat and into the Arafura Sea. At the time his tag stopped transmitting (apparently due to damage to his antenna), he had logged 3,735 kilometers (2,321 miles) and nearly reached Australian waters.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/144886.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #144886 “Satria & Jude”
EditCaption Title:144886 “Satria & Jude”
EditCaption Description:One of the first sharks we tagged, 7-meter-long (about 23 feet) Jude spent most of his time traveling around Cendrawasih Bay, where he occasionally dove to the very bottom of the bay, which boasts a depth of 1,250 meters (4,101 feet). Jude also made one trip along the northern Papua coastline to Jayapura and then back to Cendrawasih, a trek similar to the that of another tagged whale shark, Wally. We removed Jude’s tag after 19 months after his antenna was damaged.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/158582.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #158582 “Pongo”
EditCaption Title:158582 “Pongo”
EditCaption Description:A 6-meter-long (about 20 feet) male, Pongo was a real “homebody,” remaining within Cendrawasih Bay for the entire time we tracked him. During that time, he dove to a maximum depth of 768 meters (2,520 feet).
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EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #144881 “Mitch”
EditCaption Title:144881 “Mitch”
EditCaption Description:Four-meter-long (about 13 feet) Mitch managed to visit seven of the Bird’s Head MPAs (marine protected areas) during the year he was tagged. During this time, he dove to 1,336 meters (4,383 feet) and traveled nearly 3,300 kilometers (186 miles), including a northward jaunt into Palauan waters and two trips to Raja Ampat before returning to Cendrawasih Bay.
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EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #158584 “Merlin”
EditCaption Title:158584 “Merlin”
EditCaption Description:Like his colleague Pongo (tagged at the same time in February 2016), 4-meter-long (about 13 feet) Merlin remained within Cendrawasih Bay for the entire 19 months he was tagged. He dove to a maximum depth of 360 meters (1,181 feet) during this time. He is frequently spotted by tourists visiting Cendrawasih, with numerous sightings reported in November 2017.
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/153666.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #153666 "Yalgal"
EditCaption Title:153666 Yalgal
EditCaption Description:Measuring 4.7 meters (about 15 feet) long, Yalgal was an active traveler for the first nine months of his deployment, crossing the northern Bird’s Head from Biak to Raja Ampat and back, and diving to 1,125 meters (3,691 feet) maximum depth. He then returned to Cendrawasih Bay and “settled down,” not leaving the bay again during the remainder of his 21-month long tag deployment. He was sighted frequently in November 2017, still in Cendrawasih.
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EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #153665 "Moby"
EditCaption Title:153665 Moby
EditCaption Description:Six-meter-long (about 20 feet) Moby recorded one of the deepest known dives for whale sharks (1,856 meters, or 6,089 feet!) during his impressive travels north from Cendrawasih Bay to the southern Mariana Trench and back — a journey he repeated twice during his nearly two-year tag deployment (during which time he traveled nearly 8,000 kilometers, or 4,971 miles).
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EditImage URL:/SiteCollectionImages/sharks/158694.jpg
EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #158694 "Ellula"
EditCaption Title:158694 Ellula
EditCaption Description:The 6.2-meter-long male (just over 20 feet) Ellula spent much of his 10-month tag deployment in the eastern reaches of Cendrawasih Bay, including near the island of Yapen. He hit a maximum depth of 875 meters (about 2,871 feet) during this time. His tag was removed during the August 2017 CI-Georgia Aquarium health assessment when we determined that his antenna was damaged.
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EditImage Alt Text:Whale shark #165320 "Captain Kirk"
EditCaption Title:165320 Captain Kirk
EditCaption Description:Captain Kirk was one of the first whale sharks we tagged in the Kaimana region in the southern Bird’s Head region. His deployment was unusually short — only about three months long before his tag mysteriously stopped transmitting. During this time, he remained around Kaimana and dove to a maximum depth of 150 meters (492 feet). He was also tagged with an acoustic transmitter, and we are actively looking for him now.
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EditHeader:THE RESEARCH
How are sharks tagged, and what have we learned?
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EditSection Title:How are sharks tagged?
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Local fishermen call CI scientists when whale sharks are inadvertently caught in their nets. Before the sharks are freed, scientists attach a satellite transmitter to their dorsal fin, with minimal disturbance to the animals. The transmitters’ batteries last about two years, and data is relayed whenever the shark’s fin breaks the water’s surface.
In 2017, we downloaded 25 months’ worth of high-resolution data on diving and migratory behavior from the tag of one shark, affectionately named Sharky McSharkface — the largest data set ever recorded for this species.
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EditSection Title:What have we learned?
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EditImage Description:Three young whale sharks looking for a meal.
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A satellite tag has shown that “Moby,” a 15-foot male, has one of the deepest recorded dives of any whale shark at nearly 6,000 feet — more than a mile beneath the water’s surface. Other notable findings include:
- These whale sharks (tagged in West Papua, Indonesia) are not as migratory as many believed. They disperse periodically in different directions, covering distances up to 1,000 miles, often to return to ‘home waters’ in a matter of weeks.
- They are very individualistic, going their own ways for reasons unknown. We’ve tracked two males of similar ages with utterly different migration habits, one largely staying put since we mounted his tag, while the other has ventured into the western Pacific.
- The tagging site where whale sharks feed is only a few hundred feet deep, but when they travel farther afield, they dive remarkably deep.
Read more on CI’s blog, Human Nature.
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EditPhoto Credit:© Shawn Heinrichs
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EditSection Title:CI’s partnership with the Georgia Aquarium
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EditImage Description:Sometimes the overly-enthusiastic whale sharks are inadvertently captured in the bagan’s baitfish nets, allowing us a unique opportunity to then operate upon them and deploy a fin-mounted satellite tag before releasing them.
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Conservation International collaborated with Georgia Aquarium to carry out health exams and blood draws on 20 wild whale sharks to provide baseline health and ensure animal welfare during our tagging research. The results have indicated that tagging does not cause additional stress to these whale sharks.
Combining
the aquarium’s expertise on whale shark care with CI’s experience on the ground in West Papua, we are working together to ensure that whale shark tourism — a growing and lucrative industry — is managed sustainably and doesn’t adversely impact the animals’ health.
EditLink for Header and Image:http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/animal-guide/georgia-aquarium/home/galleries/ocean-voyager/gallery-animals/whale-shark[Optional]
EditPhoto Credit:© Shawn Heinrichs
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EditSection Title:Two whale sharks named by social media!
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In the spirit of Shark Week 2016, we asked our online community to name whale sharks #144883 and #144884. After receiving nearly 800 submissions, we tallied the votes and found two clear winners that will now be used by the CI scientists studying these majestic creatures.
See the winners
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EditPhoto Credit:© Conservation International/Photo by Mark Erdmann
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EditSection Title:Kids adopting whale sharks
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EditImage Description:Whale sharks in Cendrawasih Bay feeding on baitfish beneath a bagan lift net vessel.
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Conservation International recently launched a school program in Singapore in which students can adopt individual whale sharks and use this tool to track their progress daily, enabling them to learn about whale shark behavior and the ecosystem on which this species relies. The program aims to encourage greater awareness of the importance of healthy marine ecosystems and humans’ effect on them.
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EditPhoto Credit:© Shawn Heinrichs
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EditSection Title:What is the Bird’s Head Seascape
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These sharks are tagged in the waters of the Bird’s Head Seascape in West Papua, Indonesia — an area that is home to a wider array of marine creatures than anywhere else in the world. These waters, spanning an area the size of Great Britain, boast 75 percent of all the world’s coral species and more than 1,700 species of fish. This rich biodiversity increases the area’s resilience to stressors such as climate change, potentially offering clues for how coral reefs can adapt to warming seas.
Learn more about the Bird’s Head Seascape
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EditPhoto Credit:© Keith A. Ellenbogen
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EditTweet Text:Find out where eastern Indonesia's whale sharks are hanging out today via @ConservationOrg #SharkWeek
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