topic: Whale Sharks

topic: Whale Sharks

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Summit on migratory species sides with science, throws shade on deep-sea mining
- Representatives from 133 member states of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) met in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, from Feb. 12-17 to discuss measures to protect migratory species on a global scale.
- Many decisions at the meeting, known as COP14, focused on the protection of marine species, including the listing of several species in the convention’s appendices, a draft decision on vessel strikes, and an updated resolution on climate change that urges parties to take measures to protect species from future threats.
- The convention also adopted a resolution urging parties not to engage with or support deep-sea mining until more scientific evidence is acquired. This resolution garnered criticism from the secretary-general of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the U.N.-mandated body that governs deep-sea mining in international waters.
- While attendees say COP14 had many successes, some experts say that more action and resources are required to keeping species from sliding toward extinction.

In Indonesia, ‘opportunistic’ whale shark fishery shows gap in species protection
- Indonesia has since 2013 banned the capture, trade and exploitation of whale sharks, a protected species.
- Yet scores of records from 2002-2022 shown whale sharks continue to be butchered and sold along the southeastern coast of Java Island after either beaching or being unintentionally caught by fishers, according to a new study.
- The continuing illegal exploitation shows the need for more awareness raising against it by conservation authorities and groups, experts say.
- Indonesia is home to the longest coastline in Asia, and its waters serve as both a habitat and an important migratory route for species of marine megafauna like whale sharks.

Uterine implants and underwater ultrasounds aim to demystify shark births
- For years, studying the reproductive biology of sharks has depended on capturing the animals and dissecting them.
- Scientists recently developed the Birth Alert Tag, an egg-shaped satellite transmitter that can be implanted in the uterus of pregnant sharks to document the location and timing of births.
- In another development, scientists took ultrasound readings of whale sharks and sampled their blood to detect if they were pregnant.
- The new methods aim to help researchers determine sharks’ pregnancy status and the location of shark births; one goal is to inform the establishment of corridors to protect the animals, which are among the most vulnerable vertebrates on Earth.

Ecuador to announce creation of Hermandad Marine Reserve off Galapagos (commentary)
- “Ecuador is proud to announce the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve in the coming days,” the country’s president announces in a statement shared with Mongabay.
- Safeguarding the critical migration routes of vital species like whale sharks and sea turtles will result in healthier and more abundant populations, he says.
- Covering an additional 60,000 square kilometers near the Galapagos, in addition to the existing 138,000 square kilometers, the new reserve will ensure a safe pathway for creatures traveling to and from Costa Rica’s Cocos Island.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Beached whale shark in Indonesia reportedly cut up by locals to eat
- Locals in Indonesia’s West Java province reportedly cut up and ate a whale shark that washed up on a beach last week.
- Authorities have deplored the incident, noting that the species is protected under Indonesian law.
- Marine animal strandings are common in Indonesia as its waters serve as both a habitat and an important migratory route for dozens of species.

Sharks on a knife’s edge as Maldives mulls lifting 10-year fishing ban
- Eleven years ago, the Maldives created a 90,000-square-kilometer (34,750-square-mile) sanctuary that banned shark fishing, but fisheries minister Zaha Waheed said recently that the government may be planning to lift the ban.
- Conservationists say reopening shark fisheries in the Maldives would have devastating effects on shark populations and adversely affect tourism, which brings millions of dollars into the country each year.
- There are unofficial reports the Maldivian government will not be lifting the shark fishing ban, possibly in response to the local and international outcry.
- But a local expert says there are still grounds for concern if long-line fisheries are allowed to operate in the shark sanctuary, or if a legislative loophole is introduced that would allow shark fishing to recommence in some capacity.

From penguins to sharks to whales, swimming in circles is a surprisingly common trait
- Many marine animals are intentionally swimming in circles consecutively at a relatively constant speed more than twice, according to a new study using data from movement trackers.
- The researchers say the behavior is surprising in part because swimming in a straight line is known to be the most efficient way to move about.
- They found some of the animals swim in circles during different activities, including foraging, courtship, navigation and even possibly geomagnetic observations.

Mug shots and public pics join the dots of whale sharks’ Southeast Asian trips
- A study blending old and new techniques has recorded young whale sharks returning to the same spot in the Philippines after visiting Malaysia and Indonesia.
- Scientists recorded the second-biggest aggregation of whale sharks in the Philippines in Honda Bay in the province of Palawan.
- Compared to other whale shark groups in the Philippines, the one in Honda Bay is made up mostly of juvenile males that feed on small fish and krill.
- The discovery underscores the need for stronger collaboration between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, all part of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape Project under the Coral Triangle Initiative.

New species of shrimp-like creature found in a whale shark’s mouth
- Japanese scientists found a new-to-science species of shrimp-like creature from the gills of a female whale shark that lived in a fish preserve off the island of Okinawa.
- The newly described species is a type of amphipod, a group of shell-less crustaceans that usually feed on decaying plant and animal matter and can be found in a wide variety of environments, from freshwater to some of the deepest parts of the ocean.
- The researchers have named the amphipod Podocerus jinbe, after the Japanese word jinbe for whale sharks.
- It unlikely that the amphipods were feeding directly on the whale shark, the researchers say, and may have been inhabiting the whale shark’s mouth because it provided a good habitat with fresh seawater and food and shelter from predators.

Education, compensation, and spiritual outreach protect threatened whale sharks
- In the 1980s and 90s, whale sharks were being killed in their hundreds off the western coast of India. Demand for the shark’s fins and meat in south-east Asia meant a fisherman could earn as much as $7,000 for a large shark.
- In 2001, India declared the whale shark a protected species. In 2004, the Whale Shark Conservation Project began its effort to spread awareness of the ban among the fishermen in the state of Gujarat, where the killing was taking place, and to convert the fishermen from hunters to protectors of the fish.
- Through a combination of community outreach, participation of a popular spiritual leader, and financial compensation, the community was convinced to stop killing the sharks. Since then, 710 whale sharks have also been rescued after getting entangled in fishing nets, while scientists have been able to tag eight sharks for research purposes.

Thousands of sharks and rays are likely entangled in plastic polluting Earth’s oceans
- Scientists at the UK’s University of Exeter examined existing scientific literature and took to Twitter to find documented instances of shark and ray entanglements.
- They ended up finding reports of more than 1,000 entangled animals — and they say the actual number of sharks and rays snarled in plastic is likely to be far higher, as few studies have focused specifically on the issue.
- “Entanglement in marine debris is symptomatic of a degraded marine environment and is a clear animal welfare issue,” the authors write in the study. But they add that entanglement is “likely a far lesser threat” to shark and ray populations than the threat posed by commercial fishing.

What happens to an ecotourism town when the wildlife doesn’t show?
- Since the mid-1990s, the town of Donsol in the Philippines has based its economy around tourists viewing whale sharks.
- Whale sharks are migratory fish. And while they showed up in reliable numbers during the first decade of Donsol’s venture into shark tourism, their numbers have become highly unpredictable in the past decade for reasons still unknown.
- Tourism has declined as well, with 2018 registering the fewest visitor arrivals since whale shark tourism started. The local economy, which it had buoyed, is now flagging, although 2019 seems off to a strong start for both whale sharks and tourists.
- Wildlife tourism, by nature, is susceptible to biodiversity loss and changes in animal behavior; it places host communities on a thin line between profit and loss.

Mobile app encourages Indian fishers to free entangled whale sharks
- When whale sharks in waters off the Indian state of Gujarat get trapped in fishing nets, a new mobile app lets fishers easily document their release.
- Conservationists and fishers alike hope the app will speed up the compensation fishers receive for damaged nets.
- However, fishers say the compensation, a maximum of 25,000 rupees ($360), should be increased to reflect the true loss of their revenue during their downtime without nets.

You’re gonna need a smaller boat: Media obscures shrinking ‘newsworthy’ fish
- The sizes of certain species of fish that qualify as “newsworthy” have diminished over time, a new study has found.
- The authors scoured English-language newspapers going back to 1869, searching for terms like “massive” and “giant” in mentions of noteworthy fish landings, and compared the reported lengths with the largest specimens on record for that species.
- They found that for some “charismatic megafish,” such as whale sharks and manta rays, the size that qualified as large has declined over time.
- That shifting baseline could pose a problem for conservation efforts because it gives the impression that “there are still a lot of very large fish in the sea,” marine ecologist Isabelle Côté said.

Madagascar: Where young whale sharks party
- Whale sharks don’t need help being spectacular. The world’s biggest fish is impressive in nearly every aspect, growing as long as 12 meters (40 feet) and weighing up to 21 tons.
- A new study in the journal Endangered Species Research used photo-identification techniques based on the sharks’ distinctive spots to discover a new hotspot for juvenile whale sharks around the tiny island of Nosy Be, in northwest Madagascar.
- This is a rare bit of good news for a species that, like many other sharks, is struggling to survive in oceans increasingly subject to the negative impacts of human activity.

Tracking tools identify regional hubs of whale shark activity
- Researchers tracked 17 juvenile whale sharks tagged at three sites in the Philippines to understand how their movements related to food sources and fishing grounds in Southeast Asia.
- They found that juvenile sharks moved quickly and widely through the Bohol and Sulu seas but remained near their feeding sites within Philippine waters.
- In combination with other studies, these findings suggest that locally focused whale shark conservation efforts are critical and must consider the movements juvenile whale sharks make within zones of several hundred square kilometers.

Scientists say endangered whale sharks can live up to 130 years
- Scientists at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in the United States led a team of researchers who used minimally invasive methods for examining the growth patterns of whale sharks in the South Ari Atoll of the Maldives. The team repeatedly took measurements of free-swimming sharks over a 10-year period using three different approaches: visual, laser, and tape measures.
- The team built models of whale shark growth patterns based on the measurements they had taken from 186 encounters with 44 sharks and determined that male whale sharks reach maturity at about 25 years of age, can grow to nearly 62 feet in length, and can live as long as 130 years.
- Approximately 75 percent of the global whale shark population lives in the Indo-Pacific region of Earth’s oceans, with the other 25 percent occurring in the Atlantic Ocean. According to the IUCN Red List, combined data from both regions shows that the global whale shark population has likely declined by more than 50 percent over the past 75 years.

‘Biological passports’ show whale sharks travel less than we thought
- A study looking at chemical signatures in whale shark tissue and using photographic identification has revealed that young sharks in three countries along the western rim of the Indian Ocean don’t typically stray more than a few hundred kilometers from their feeding sites.
- Of the more than 1,200 sharks photographed, only two traveled between different feeding sites — in this case, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) between Mozambique and Tanzania.
- The authors of the study say their findings demonstrate that local conservation of these populations is important because if whale sharks are wiped out in an area, they’re unlikely to repopulate it later on.

Longest recorded whale shark migration eclipses 20,000 kilometers
- Scientists followed the movements of a whale shark for nearly two and a half years as she swam more than 20,000 kilometers (over 12,000 miles) from the coast of Central America to the Marianas Trench near Asia.
- Whale sharks, whose numbers have dropped by more than half in the past 75 years according to the IUCN, are taken by fishing boats for their fins, cartilage, meat and teeth, and studies have shown that boats bringing tourists to swim with the largest fish in the ocean change the species’ behavior.
- Given these threats, scientists hope studies such as this one will help guide conservation policy aimed at protecting these animals throughout their migrations.

Study reveals the Pacific Garbage Patch is much heftier than thought — and it’s growing
- A recent survey of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch revealed that the aggregated plastic there weighs in at 79,000 metric tons (87,100 short tons).
- The plastic is floating across an area larger than Mongolia at 1.6 million square kilometers (618,000 square miles).
- Around 75 percent of the pieces that are larger than 5 centimeters (2 inches) in length, and old fishing nets make up a minimum of 46 percent of the total mass.
- The scientists calculated that 94 percent of the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch are microplastics.

Microplastic pollution in world’s oceans poses major threat to filter-feeding megafauna
- A study published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution last month looks at how filter-feeding marine animals like baleen whales, manta rays, and whale sharks are impacted by microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
- Filter-feeding megafauna must swallow hundreds to thousands of cubic meters of water every day in order to catch enough plankton to keep themselves nourished. That means that these species are probably ingesting microplastics both directly from polluted water and indirectly through the consumption of contaminated plankton prey.
- Microplastic particles can block nutrient absorption and damage the digestive tracts of the filter-feeding marine life that ingest them, while toxins and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) found in plastic can accumulate in the bodies of marine wildlife over time, changing biological processes such as growth and reproduction and even leading to decreased fertility.

‘Record’ number of migratory species protected at October wildlife summit
- The Convention on Migratory Species adopted 34 proposals to protect species threatened with extinction.
- Attendees adopted proposals to bolster protections for chimpanzees, giraffes, leopards, lions and whale sharks.
- India will host the next such meeting in 2020.

Whale sharks inch closer to extinction
- Whale shark numbers have plummeted by more than 50 percent in the last 75 years.
- Threats to the whale shark include habitat destruction, accidental entanglement in fishing nets, vessel collisions, and hunting for their meat, fins and oil.
- Numbers of the winghead shark have also declined by at least 50 percent in the last 40 years, mostly due to unregulated fishing.

5 Tech Projects That Are Protecting Sharks
- Annually, approximately 100 million sharks are killed by commercial fisheries.
- Shark Week is the longest running cable TV program and has aired every summer since 1988; educating millions of viewers on the intricate and elusive nature of sharks.
- In celebration and support of Shark Week 2016, we are excited to highlight five different organizations and technologies that are being used to protect shark species.

Whale shark mapping: scientists uncover global distribution for the largest fish in the world

Polka-dotted and striped. Massive but docile. That’s the whale shark for you – the largest fish and shark in the world. But despite being major tourist attractions, the lives of these awe-inspiring creatures of the ocean remain far from being demystified. However, a team of researchers from Australia may now have some answers to where […]
Pictures of the day: sea turtle and whale shark release in China

Green sea turtle released back into its natural habitat after being raised for 10 months. Photo by: Sea Turtles 911. Earlier this month, Sea Turtles 911, a conservation organization in China, released two green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) and a juvenile whale shark (Rhincodon typus) back into the wild. “These two animals share the ocean, […]
Clever whale shark video goes viral

Brent Stewart tags a whale shark with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag in Indonesia. Photo: © CI/Mark Erdmann. Researchers have a caught a juvenile—though still massive—whale shark on camera sucking fish out of a hole in an Indonesian fishing net. Posted on YouTube.com, the video has gone viral and has been viewed by 1.2 million […]

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