Whale Sharks

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 16 2007 | By: admin

Yesterday Volker and I had a super meeting with Nassir, the senior research scientist at the Kenya Wildlife Service offices in Mombasa. The KWS has been very supportive of our work and we are keen to work together to ensure that whale sharks are safe in Kenyan waters. Our aim is to illegalise the whale shark trade completely and implement a code of conduct for any human interaction. We will use the various models in place, drawing particularly from the code of conduct used in Ningaloo, Western Australia. We planned a series of meetings with senior KWS administration to see this through and we are really optimistic about the implementation. We figure that if they can successfully illegalise the whale shark trade in Taiwan where there is arguably the highest demand for whale shark meat/liver in the world, then we can do it here in Kenya!

Our friend Bea Larco took these pictures of a dead whale shark we found in 2005.

Did you know that the whale shark has the thickest skin in the animal world? It is 9 inches thick in places. That is about as long as an average head or foot. Isn’t that amazing? And doesn’t it deserve the ultimate protection? You can help us save the whale shark. Just do it!