TAG NUMBER ONE

Category: Research | Date: Apr 13 2008 | By: admin

Here is a picture of the tag from this year that came off after only a few weeks. This was the 3rd shark we tagged this year. We tagged it on 21 February and it came off on 3 March. As you can see if you look really carefully, you can see that about half the dart tip is sticking out.

I think we were having trouble with the pressure charge on the speargun about then which might explain why it didn’t penetrate deeply. Brent had made notes in his log stating that he wasn’t sure that it was a good penetration, just from seeing how much of the tether was exposed when looking at it underwater. In any event, it did stay on for about 2 weeks so we will get some data on movements and diving and of course a real plus on the recovery as we can use it again.

Here are the GPS positions that helped us find it.

2 Responses to “TAG NUMBER ONE”

Paula, on 13 Apr 2008

Hi Nimu, it looks like your whale shark went onto land… these are really weird data - can you please describe what we are looking at?

whalesharks, on 14 Apr 2008

Absolutely right Paula, the TAG went inland (not the shark!) - remember I told you this tag was sending out a signal from the middle of a village in Shanzu? We were a bit stumped but GPS signals don’t lie!! We think someone found it and scurried all over the place with it! That’s why we are so grateful to the beach boy who returned it to Simon our volunteer who told him the story. This is one of the tags pictured in the entry KENYA AIRWAYS LOVES WHALESHARKS and you can see that it has been tampered with a bit. Someone tried to open it but luckily the tags are made to withstand tons of pressure (literally, as whale sharks dive over 1000 metres deep) so trying to open them with a knife isn’t going to be very effective. This tag is our golden egg and will hopefully give us back a year’s worth of data. It is safely with Brent now and we should get the info soon. So watch this space folks!

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