http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,25408386-2761,00.html?from=public_rss

POPULATIONS of the world’s largest fish, the whale shark, are increasing at WA’s Ningaloo Reef, scientists report.

Researchers made the discovery using an online photo-identification technology called ECOCEAN which they used to track the sharks around the world.

The system works by encouraging members of the public to submit photos of whale sharks to the library’s database.

Scientists then identify the fish using pattern-recognition software which is then used to illustrate the whale sharks migratory habits.

More than 500 new whale sharks, considered vulnerable, have been discovered at Ningaloo reef since the project first began in 1993.

The team’s findings have been published in the journalEndangered Species Research (ESR).

Whale sharks migrate up to 12,000km and prior to the 1980s there had been only 350 confirmed sightings of the giant fish.

In some countries whale sharks are still harvested commercially.

Lead author on the ESR study Jason Holmberg says smaller whale sharks have also been discovered feeding at the reef during the study.

“Why are more and more juveniles arriving on the reef? It’s unclear, but it’s positive news,” Mr Holmberg said.

Founder of the ECOCEAN whale shark project and Murdoch University scientist Brad Norman says the research shows that whale sharks can increase where they are well-protected.

“We have also demonstrated the power of citizen-science, that ordinary people around the world can make a real contribution to serious research and conservation.”

“Thanks to increasing levels of data collection, we’re finally able to estimate how many whale sharks appear annually, how long they typically remain at Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP), their patterns of arrival and departure and shifts in their population structure,” he said.

Mr Norman recently discovered that whale sharks swim much faster than thought, nose-diving to the ocean floor for food and using their enormous weight and gravity for speed.

Curtin University researchers have also showed that whale shark ecotourism is a boon for local communities.

“Our results indicate that without whale sharks at Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP) up to $4.6 million would be lost from the local economy,” Mr Norman said.

“Similar economic benefits could be available at other whale shark ‘hotspots’ around the world,” he said.

The researchers hope now to use this technology to analyse data from other study sites and obtain a broader picture of the species.

Mr Norman warns that fundamental information on the whale sharks remains a mystery.

“Of over 1300 whale sharks we have tagged with our partners in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, very few have been sighted at other study locations, even though some whale sharks have been tracked for thousands of kilometres,” Mr Norman says.

He also cautions against making assumptions of how this may affect broader Indian Ocean populations, especially considering the migratory nature of whale sharks.

”Our models provide information only about the whale sharks visiting the northern region of NMP annually. While the number of sharks returning to that area in multiple seasons appears to be growing, we cannot make assumptions of how this may affect broader Indian Ocean populations, especially considering their migratory nature,” he said.

The success of the online survey has prompted scientists to issue a worldwide call to holiday-makers and divers to join in a global effort to monitor and protect the largest fish in the sea - thought to be at risk in the waters off many countries.

For further information on whale sharks visit www.whaleshark.org

If anyone would like to see a nice small report on us go to

http://www.scubabasics.com/blog/2009/04/11/scuba-diving-utila-in-2008/

They have some good video clips of the diving.

See full story here

By Nasouh Nazzal, Staff Reporter
Published: November 19, 2008, 17:44

Dubai: An Emirati fisherman caught a whale shark off the coast of Ras Al Kahimah on Wednesday, but the Environmental Protection and Industrial Authority set it free.

Mohammad Ebrahim Ali Al Mazrouei, a fisherman from Al Muaireed in Ras Al Khaimah, never imagined catching a fish weighing around two tonne. He was surprised to spot something heavy entangled in the net and called on his assistants for help. Together they pulled in the net to find a shark.

As soon as they reached the shore, which took them more than five hours, they alerted local authorities.

Dr Saif Al Ghais, head of Environmental and Industrial Authority, said the young female whale shark is five-meters long.

The fisherman, on the instruction of the authorities, will take the shark into the deep sea and will set it free.

Dr Al Ghais urged fishermen to leave whale sharks alone as they are harmless creatures.

This is a great article about what Dr Mark Meekean has found out about Whale Sharks, if you look at the full BBC link it has 2 videos on as well

BBC Video

Shark-cam captures ocean motion

By Rebecca Morelle

Science reporter, BBC News

It is as thick as your arm and smells disgusting - and it has just been caught on camera for what is thought to be the first time.

A crew has managed to record a whale shark - the world’s biggest fish - expelling food waste, which was then scooped up for research.

Biologist Mark Meekan said the sample had helped him to discover more about the giant creature’s feeding habits.

The footage forms part of a BBC Natural World wildlife programme: Whale Shark.

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are related to great whites, but are far less fearsome - they are filter feeders, swimming about with their enormous mouths open to scoop up tasty morsels floating in their paths.

They can grow up to 12m long; yet, despite their staggering size, very little is known about these ocean giants.

Dr Meekan, who is based at the Darwin office of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was followed by the Natural World team as he has carried out his research on these mysterious fish.

He said: “It does seem rather weird, someone being so excited about seeing whale shark poo. And I’m pretty certain that this is the first time it has been filmed.

“But it is pretty rare - they are usually doing their business down in much deeper water.”

He described the faeces that the team collected as “scientific gold”.

“One way to work out what is going in one end is to look at what is coming out of the other.

“By seeing one of these animals poo and getting hold of some of that stuff, we can use sophisticated genetic techniques to look at the DNA in that sample to find out exactly what those animals have been eating.”

Genetic analysis revealed that the whale shark had been feasting on red crab larvae - and this could be why the fish are attracted to Christmas island, which has plenty of this foodstuff available.

Dr Meekan said: “This is something we suspected, but now it has been confirmed.

“It has been really exciting to nail that one.”

Dr Meekan and his team have also been using technology to find out more about the fish.

He told the BBC: “The study of whale sharks is a fairly young science. People have only really been studying these things since the late 1980s.”

But now, he said, advances in tagging technology over the last decade have really helped to improve understanding.

Satellite tags, which relay GPS data every time the fish surface, have already helped researchers to discover the vast distances the creatures travel.

But the team is also now taking advantage of other tagging systems.

Dr Meekan said: “Now we are taking another step forward and instead of just acquiring location, we are now also using tags to look at water temperature and salinity, to make a physical description of the waters they are inhabiting.

“They have also got an accelerometer on board which shows the position of the animal in 3D. It’s pretty cool.”

The tags also contain video cameras to get a whale-shark’s-eye view of its underwater terrain.

The marine biologist said: “There has recently been a rapid evolution of technology. These tags are becoming more and more sophisticated; we are learning more and more things about the animal, its environment and what it is doing.

“We have gone from saying: ‘Oh, there the animal is!’ to really understanding it, what it is doing out there.”

]]> http://deepblueutila.dreamhosters.com/blog/2008/11/whale-shark-cam-catches-ocean-motion/feed/ http://deepblueutila.dreamhosters.com/blog/2008/11/year-of-the-shark-2009/ http://deepblueutila.dreamhosters.com/blog/2008/11/year-of-the-shark-2009/#comments Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:41:02 +0000 deepblueutila http://deepblueutila.dreamhosters.com/blog/?p=109

To All divers and people that read this blog, 2009 is the year of the shark and it is time for all of us to do something, I ask divers, have you noticed the difference in the oceans since you have been diving,? The answer is always unanimously yes, everyone has noticed the decline in fish and sharks, this is a worldwide problem and as divers we need to do something about it.

I know most have very busy lives and do not have time, but now there is a way, help promote Year of the Shark 2009, look at www.Year-of-the-Shark-2009.org this is just in the construction stage at the moment so don’t forget to come back and visit the site, there will be places where you can download a poster to promote the Year of the Shark 2009, one of this should be in every dive shop in the world.

Another thing you can do is join the Google groups that have helped organize this and many other things to help sharks.

The Shark Group

http://groups.google.com/group/The_Shark_Group?hl=en

Or Let Sharks Live

http://groups.google.com.mt/group/let-sharks-live?hl=en

In the story below about the Pilot Whale beachings I mentioned about earthquakes, apparently I did not explain it correctly and I was contacted by a gentleman called Captain David Williams who has been working on this phenomenon for 40 years he has a website and I would strongly suggest that people should read it, look at

http://www.deafwhale.com/

Then for more on the actual strandings look at

http://www.deafwhale.com/why_do_whales_strand/

If you would like more in depth details about seaquakes look at this page.

http://www.deafwhale.com/why_do_whales_strand/seaquake_waves.htm

I really would like to thank David for contacting me, and please if anyone hears of strandings I would suggest contacting him as it may assist with his research.

This week I am sorry but some sad news of 5 Pilot Whales who beached themselves on Utila.

There are lots of different thoughts on why whales do this, some are sonar from things like submarines, another thought is underwater natural noise such as an earthquake, there have been whale beachings since before the days of submarines.

If you look at this website

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_xmaq.html you will see that there was an earthquake in the area a few days before, could it have anything to do with it ????

Skin samples were taken and will be examined.

This story has created a lot of news even in the International Herald Tribune

www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/08/news/LT-Honduras-Dead-Whales.php

Here are some photos of the sad event.

I am sure as divers a lot of you know the film, My Life Aquatic starring Bill Murray and a host of other stars, it is a play on the old Jacques Cousteau films that a lot of us were raised watching, here is a photo of him wearing his famous red hat.

In the film, The Life Aquatic, they have parodied this by keeping the red hats, See pictures from the movie here.

Well there has built up around this film a huge cult following and a couple of weeks ago we had famous Steve Zissou Society photographer Joedy Hargis here at the resort ( If you believe that you will believe anything) and here are some of the photo’s he took whilst in Utila, with the staff and customers joining in the fun.

I would just like to tell everyone about a great guy we had staying at the resort a couple of weeks a go Pup Morse, not only a great guy and a good diver but a great musician who writes all of his own songs and has a lot of songs about Scuba diving, have a look at his website http://www.Justascubacowboy.com and you can hear some of his music.

To quote from the website www.BwanaDoc.com

Saving the Whales is the first in the series of the adventures of Bwana Doc, international environmental pirate, the man that does what it takes to end the destruction of our planet.

In Saving the Whales Bwana Doc^tm takes on the Japanese Whaling industry that is killing whales in theAntarctic to sell their meat in the markets of Asia. But when real pirates, radical environmentalists, the French perfume industry and Interpol get involved, the situation gets complicated and only Bwana Doc can save the day!

I would recommend everyone to go and look at the website www.BwanaDoc.com

I was with Brad Norman a few weeks ago in Mexico at the 2nd International Whale Shark Conference and there are some great new developments coming so keep watching.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080825-whale-sharks-missions.html

NASA Tool Helps Track Whale Sharks, Polar Bears

Photos of giant whale sharks snapped by vacationing scuba divers and snorkelers are helping scientists track the elusive marine creatures across the oceans.

And the same technique may soon also help researchers track polar bears in Canada, giant Eurasian trout in Mongolia, and ocean sunfish in the Galápagos Islands.

A tourist snaps a photo of a whale shark in Ningaloo Marine Park in western Australia. Snapshots of this species can be uploaded to an online database that analyzes the animal’s skin patterns and determines whether the same shark has been spotted elsewhere.

Biologists have adapted a complex algorithm developed by scientists working for NASA. The original algorithm mapped stars. The new one analyzes photos of whale sharks, identifying each animal’s unique pattern of white spots. The program determines if a particular shark has been seen before by other database users.

The participatory tracking technique is already lending new insight into the biology of whale sharks, according to Brad Norman, a research scientist from Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

The tourist-collected tracking information is helping researchers learn more about where and when the fish migrate and their rate of return to particular areas, Norman said.

For example, at Ningaloo Marine Park in Western Australia, where the tracking technique was first tested, researchers found some sharks remain near the reef for up to three months.

And the global database of whale shark pictures indicates that some of the giant fish migrate between Mexico, Honduras, and Belize.

“We can use these data to highlight the need for international agreements to protect this threatened species,” said Norman, who is a National Geographic Society emerging explorer, as well as the recipient of funding from the Rolex Awards for Enterprise.

(National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

Tracking Whales and Stars

Whale sharks are the world’s largest living fish species, growing more than 40 feet (12 meters) long. They are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), though little is known about their basic biology, ecology, breeding and migration patterns, and worldwide population size.

In 2000, Norman formed ECOCEAN, a nonprofit marine conservation organization based in Perth, to develop the participatory tracking system to facilitate whale shark studies.

The concept is based on an algorithm originally developed in 1986 to help NASA scientists match disparate images of stars made with instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Each giant whale shark is covered in a unique pattern of white spots, making them hard to miss when they swim by.

“We just adapted that from white spots on a black night sky to white spots on the flank of a whale shark,” said ECOCEAN information architect Jason Holmberg, who lives in Portland, Oregon.

Zaven Arzoumanian, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, led the algorithm’s development.

Now, scientists and tourists can upload their whale shark pictures to www.whaleshark.org, an online photo identification database, along with information on where and when each giant fish was sighted.

The algorithm searches through the thousands of whale shark images in the database—currently 16,000 reported from 40 countries—for a match.

If one is found, the submitter will receive an email with a link to the identified shark and a history of its sightings.

So far, more than 1,300 whale sharks have been identified.

“Citizen science,” or involvement by the public, “provides the opportunity for thousands of nonscientists to become involved and make a meaningful contribution to wildlife conservation,” Norman said.

Applied to Other Species

Now that that the technique has been proven with whale sharks and is yielding results, the ECOCEAN team wants to extend it to other species.

In theory, the algorithm is adaptable to any creature with a telltale spot pattern that stays consistent over time. Think cheetahs, manta rays, spotted penguins.

This fall, biologists Jane Waterman and James Roth of the University of Central Florida will begin using the technique to track polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba.

The bears, which were recently listed as a threatened species in the U.S., have unique spots at the base of their whiskers. The algorithm is being tweaked to account for the size and placement of each spot.

(Related: Polar Bears Listed as Threatened Species [May 14, 2008])

Churchill is considered the best polar bear viewing site in the world and hosts hundreds of photo-snapping tourists each year.

“We can identify bears from year to year, so we can start looking at ‘Do things change with the bears?’” Waterman said of the possibilities with the citizen-tracking technique.

“Are we seeing the same individuals coming into the area year upon year? Do we see a change in how long they stay in the tourist area? There are a lot of questions you can ask, if the technology works,” she said.

National Geographic Emerging Explorer Tierney Thys has expressed interest in adapting the technique to her research on ocean sunfish, also known as mola.

One population of mola, the world’s heaviest bony fish, resides in the Galápagos Islands and is photographed nearly every week by an underwater camera on a cruise ship.

Thys has secured access to those images and with Norman plans to look for identifiable markers that can be used for tracking.

“It would be a noninvasive way of answering questions about the sunfish in the Galápagos. For example, we could start to decipher if this is a resident population or not,” she said.

Another emerging explorer, Zeb Hogan of the Megafishes Project, thinks the technique could be useful for tracking giant Eurasian trout.

“They have spotting on their head that doesn’t appear to change as they age, which is the necessary requirement to use the technique,” he said.

Catch-and-release fishing is thriving in Mongolia, where tourists flock to hook giant trout. Upon success, the tourists pose for a photo with their fish before releasing it.

Hogan and colleagues plan to compile a database of ten years’ worth of snapshots of people holding their catch.

“Rather than having people diving with these giant sharks, we have people fishing for giant trout,” he said. “It’s pretty much exactly the same thing.”

Dr Eric Hoffmayer is also working with Dr Rachel Graham who has been instrumental in getting acoustic tags and receivers to us here in Utila to use, we are hoping that Eric will be able to come and visit us again soon.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/news/stories/2008/08/15/whale_sharks_gatherings.html

This is the article from the Atlanta Journal

Huge gatherings of whale sharks discovered in Gulf of Mexico

Scientists believe whale sharks regularly congregate off Mississippi and Louisiana coasts

By JIM THARPE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Friday, August 15, 2008

frog-fish3

Unfortunately this week there were no Whale Sharks but great weather and good visability made for some brilliant diving with all sorts of wonderful and weird creatures.

August and September is normally good weather with flat calm seas and some of the best visibility in the caribbean.

I thought I would also post a photo that was taken this week at the resort of one of our resident Humming birds.

The catorgories were

Underwater Section, Creative and / or Humorous, Macro, Fish or Marine Animal Portrait

Terrestrial Section, Beach, Sunset / Sunrise, Nature and Wildlife

Here are the first three in every section.

Fish or Marine Animal Portrait

1st Place Wren Tidwell

2nd Place Mark Estill

3rd Place Steve Ogden

Macro

1st Place Steve Ogden

2nd Place Steve Ogden

3rd Place Jill Bouska

Creative / Humorous

1st Place Jill Bouska

2nd Place Steve Ogden

3rd Place Jill Bouska

In the terestrial section

Sunset / Sunrise

1st Place Jill Bouska

2nd Place Mark Estill

3rd Place Steve Ogden

Nature and Wildlife

1st Place Paula Boyet

2nd Place Mark Estill

3rd Place Paula Boyet

Beach

1st Place Paula Boyett

2nd Place Mark Estill

3rd Place Steve Ogden

And we had to give a special award from Deep Blue to Mark Estill because of his Whale Shark photo, a great shot in a day where the Diving Rebels saw 4 Whale Sharks a Manta and Pilot Whales wooow does it get any better.

Lastly Deep Blue Resort would like to thank the Diving Rebels for being such a great crowd, and we hope to see you all again soon.

Deep Blue Resort would like to thank Larry C who was staying with us last week to use his photos here, a very special photo is of the Moon Snail, these are quite rare here, I do not know of another one that has been photographed on the island of Utila.

Photo 1 Gaudy Natica Moon Snail

Photo 2 Longsnout Seahorse

Photo 3 Shortnose Batfish

Photo 4 Whale Shark

Photo 5 Haliburton Wreck

Monster sharks ‘fly’ like fighter pilots

‘It is like the way a bird dives, then soars, using its momentum and gravity’

Monster sharks can execute underwater ‘flight’ moves that would have put some fighter pilots to shame, two researchers announced this week.

Normally seen cruising slowly at the surface, the whale shark, which does not harm humans, can transform in the deep, hurling itself into a swift, steep dive like a pilot, soaring up and then down again in a series of great bounds, said researcher Rory Wilson of Swansea University in the Wales.

Whale sharks are the world’s biggest fish. They are not whales or mammals.

“It is like the way a bird dives, then soars, using its momentum and gravity to conserve as much energy as possible. It flies like a bird — but in this case, a bird as large as a bus!” Wilson said. Such behavior has never been observed in a fish before, he said.

Brad Norman / LiveScience Marine scientists swam alongside the whale sharks in Australia’s Ningaloo Reef to study Credit: Brad Norman

Wilson worked with Brad Norman of Australia’s Murdoch University to track whale sharks in the Indian Ocean, off Ningaloo, on Australia’s western coast. The team equipped several whale sharks with an electronic device that records in minute detail — eight times a second — the giant creature’s every action, including speed, depth, pitch, roll and heading, along with every beat of the fish’s tail.’For the first time, we have an insight into what it is that these magnificent creatures get up to when they are out of sight of humans — and it isn’t what we expected,’ said Norman, who received a Rolex Award in 2006 for his project employing ‘citizen scientists’ worldwide to help study and protect whale sharks through an online global photo ID library.

Rolex Awards / Juergen Freund / LiveScience Brad Norman attaches a ‘daily diary’ device to a whale shark. Rory Wilson swims behind him.

‘It’s a real Jekyll-and-Hyde existence,’ said Wilson of the contrasting behaviors of the sharks revealed by his electronic wildlife monitor. The device is helping to reveal details of the lives of more than 50 animal species in the wild, a project that won Wilson a Rolex Award, also in 2006.The devices were attached in late May to eight sharks up to 26 feet (8 meters) long off Ningaloo. The devices are designed to release from the sharks and can be recovered by tracking them. The recovered data documented every move of the giant fish over several hours.

Eventually, the devices could reveal how and where whale sharks feed and breed, enabling those localities to protect the giant fish from human impacts such as hunting or pollution.