MAFIA WHALE SHARK

Category: Research | Date: Mar 19 2008 | By: admin

Remember I told you about the whale shark that was sighted off Mafia island in Tanzania on February 16? Matt Potenski, the researcher in Mafia, has sent me these pictures of our whale shark and its tag!! He told me that it was seen near the surface at 1125hrs. It was a male of about 5.5 metres

What you can see is one of our yellow fabric tags albeit with a lot of algae growth but you can just about make out K001 in the middle. Matt takes neoprene gloves with him to clean the tags and he told me he uses his XL Cressi freediving fins plus a lot of puff to clean the tag off so that he can read it! He had to get back on his boat 4 times and be taken to catch up with this shark 4 separate times in order to clean the tag! He told me “I simply dive down and grab the tag - swimming fast enough to prevent any tension on the tag string and vigorously wipe the algae away”. What a star!

He also sent us a picture of the shark which will be sent off for photo ID.

Look at all the little fish around it. Isn’t it beautiful? We were so excited to hear from Matt and are so grateful to him for sending us the photos. I had to post this on the blog even though we are about to board a plane in a few hours. I wanted to share these photos with you. Please let me know what you think!

5 Responses to “MAFIA WHALE SHARK”

sheryl, washington dc, on 19 Mar 2008

I think that’s a mighty big shark.

F. J. Pechir, on 19 Mar 2008

I think you are doing an extraordinary conservation work with this sharks. In many cases, the research is the first step to protect a species.

Paula, on 19 Mar 2008

What amazing news. You guys have such an exciting life!

nimu, on 19 Mar 2008

Thanks guys - Sheryl, it is actually a pretty small shark! The one I swam with in Watamu was TWICE the size! Average for us in Diani is 7m. F.J I agree with you about the research and if I could spend my days swimming with whale sharks, tagging, taking photos and observing I would die happy and honestly ask for no more!! It is exciting stuff Paula but as we all know the research part is the highlight of what we do. (Why don’t you join us for our April tagging? We run from April 19 - 27, and you are welcome. Karibu sana!)It’s not always so exciting though and we spend most of our time trying to fundraise and working in our local community with schools, womens’ group and fishers. I had 3 meetings with potential donors/sponsors today. We would need so little to run our project - as little as USD500 per month would allow me to pay some salaries and really kick start our community work. I am determined to get this started although it is so hard with no proper funding. We think it IS exciting and worthwhile and we believe in our work so much and to that end we will keep working. Thanks again to WildlifeDirect and all our kind readers for constant support and encouragement. You really do make such a difference!