Save Our Seas Blogs

2008 is proving to be a very trying season…. This year the South East trade winds which generally blow constantly from May to October decided to take a two week break in August…. The end result of which was that the seas around Seychelles have remained clear and blue with very little plankton productivity.

As a consequence there have been very few whale sharks around with our aerial surveys generally running at less than one shark per hour, compared to our maximum annual average of just below 7 per hour in 2006!

Activities were further delayed when our microlight aircraft was flipped over by prop-wash rotors on the runway, necessitating us to rapidly import another aircraft to continue the season…

Then the weather continued to conspire against us by developing a tropical depression (which matched the mood of the monitoring team!) that stopped surveys for a further four days!

So here we are in the last few weeks of the season, but things are back in full swing once again and we are beginning to see increased sighting rates, above three per hour on some days. We have also been able to get numerous photo IDs and biopsy samples and whale shark Copepods for DNA analysis.

The Save Our Seas funded satellite tags have also arrived and, fingers crossed, we hope to have an action packed end to the season!

No we weren’t referring to the arrival of the Chris Clarke and Dan Beecham of SOSF, although that would probably be fitting as well, but the return of several whale sharks we had seen in previous years!

Thanks to the wonders of I³S, the spot-matching computer programme that has revolutionised whale shark identification, we are being able to be far more productive in assessing the sharks seen around Seychelles. So far this year we have had a total of 16 sharks re-sighted from previous years and in September of 14 sharks identified to date 7 had been photographed in previous years.

Of these seven resightings, one shark had been seen in 2005, 2006 and 2007; four sharks had been seen in both 2006 and 2007; one in 2005 and 2006, and the last shark had been previously identified in 2003…..

So it seems that although the season is being somewhat slow compared to previous years, we are getting a lot of site-faithful sharks coming back… lets hope we can find a few compliant ones for Chris and Dan!

How the team are faring after two weeks of training…

As the second week of the intern programme comes to a close our team of seven interns, two young volunteers and one MSc student have been putting in to practise what they had learnt in week one and remarkably well at that!

Last weekend microlight pilot David Daniel with team leader Luke Riley got the intern team onto their first whale shark of the season but our two young local volunteers, Rachel Pool and Clara Anganuzzi, weren’t able to join that day so we had some catching up to do….

However, as is often the case, the weather had other ideas and when conditions were okay for the aerial surveys the sharks had decided to play coy and visit their relatives! However, on Wednesday things were looking good and we headed to the South of Mahe where prospects looked good for an afternoon encounter session; we were also joined by two contributing eco-tourists Claire and Adrian, keen to help with whale shark conservation ….. over to Clara and Rachel:

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The first week of the programme has seen the interns working through what seems to be a huge amount of work, learning the different monitoring activities, how to record them accurately, enter them into the data-bases and mastering the physical skills that are going to be needed….

Joining the interns are two young local volunteers, Rachel Pool and Clara Anganuzzi, from the International School Seychelles, who have helped make the transition from hard data to digital records seem like child’s play!

And what a busy week it has been; besides learning the monitoring systems and data handling and entry, the team have also had to cope with the physical skills. Starting with snorkelling, progressing to free-diving, to photo ID a target at 5 metres, to practise with a camera system fitted with lasers pointers to measure the sharks’ length… and then there was setting up plankton tows… and getting up above it all for the aerial surveys….

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Now the hard work begins!

As the start of the whale shark monitoring season approaches things here have become very hectic, but it seems that all is now ready so we have a few moments to update you of our activities.

Over the last few years the amount of data that the programme has developed has been growing dramatically and it has become necessary to look at our eco-volunteer programme in a more formal manner. This year we are running a 10- week internship programme incorporating a two week training session so that everyone is up to speed on the various activities. David will be assisted by Katie Brooks and Luke Riley who will be the two team leaders for the season. Katie has worked as a volunteer and team leader on the MCSS programme in 2006 and 2007 as well as working on the Australian Whale Shark programmes on Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia in 2007. Luke also assisted the MCSS whale shark programme in 2007 and is thus familiar with the activities.

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