Project Status—2008 Get Ready!
We're ramping up for 2008 using our experience and great success from 2005, 2006 and 2007. We have expanded our observation dates to ensure even more photo-identification sessions, and we'll be building on the growing worldwide data available in the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library. We're also expanding the types of data we collect in conjunction with our observation season and even have a few novel whale shark observation sessions planned...but more teasers on that later! In the mean time, sign up to join us on a trip!
Our research to date has been very sucessful, and we would like to thank all of our guests who participated in our 2005, 2006 and 2007 Whale Shark Research Projects. Their financial contributions (by being here) and their assistance in data collection were greatly appreciated.
We would like to thank the following guests more specifically for their additional contribution to our Whale Shark Project Fund: Quinton Lake, Bill Sperling, Veronica Atlantis, Toni & Rick Hulbert.
We would like to thank Dale Forbes MSc of WSORC for loading 55 photogarphs from Utila into the Ecocean Database and also for working with Jasmine at Deep Blue on visual identification matching.
Thank you to Dan Cain of Funky Fat Fish Productions for working with us each year to date taking video footage and then loading the photogarphs into the database. Last but not least we would like to say a big thank you to our boat crew; Swin, our boat Captain and an awesome Whale Shark spotter and Matt Awty, our Divemaster for ensuring the safety of both our guests and the Whale sharks we encounter.
We also thank PADI Project Aware for their contribution of $950.
If you would like to make a donation to our Whale Shark Research effort please email us for further information.
Project Status—2007 Wrap-up
Logged Encounters
The most exciting happening of 2007 was Mexico joining the Ecocean database and for the first time we have twoWhale Sharks being identified across three different countries; Utila, Belize and Mexico, MXA-008 was sighted in all three countries over different years and this year BZ-001 was sighted in all three countres, this is AWESOME.
Following a Central American Whale Shark Conference in Belize in late 2006 closer ties were made with Dr Rachel Graham from The Wildlife Conservation Society in Belize and The Bay Islands Conservation Association in Utila. A joint project was planned with Rachel and her sponsors to deploy accoustic receivers at key locations around Utila and to tag Whale Sharks passing through Utila with acoustic tags. Rachel has already deployed receivers in Belize and the Flower Gardens off the coast of Texas and hopefully during late 2007 and 2008 we will be deploying acoustic receivers in Mexico. This project will enable us to further track the migration routes of the Whale Sharks. The receivers will track 24 hours per day so do not rely on divers being in the water at the right time.
During our 2007 four week project we were able to load a further 55 unique encounters into the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library . Again we also collected and loaded many more photos from previous years, as people are getting to know about the database they are sending in more old photos which is great.
We were able to identify a further 16 Whale Sharks bringing a total to date of 52 uniquely identified Whale Sharks.
Our Stars
Multi-year Encounters to mid 2007
H-001 2004, 2005
H-006 2002, 2005
H-007 2004, 2005, 2006
H-008 2000, 2004, 2006
H-014 2004, 2005
H-016 2005, 2007
H-017 2002, 2005
H-018 2004, 2005, 2006
H-019 2005, 2006
H-031 2005, 2007
H-045 2002, 2006, 2007
Multi-year & Multi-location Encounters to mid 2007
H-001
Belize 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007
Utila 2004, 2005
H-006 2001 Belize and 2002, 2005 Utila
H-008 2000 Belize and 2004, 2006 Utila
H-017 2002 Belize and 2005 Utila
H-021 2000, 2006 Belize and 2005 Utila
H-051 2002 Utila, 2005 Belize
BZ-001
Belize 2005, 2007
Utila 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007
Mexico 2007
MXA-008
Belize 2004, 2005
Utila 2006
Mexico 2005, 2006
Project Status—2006 Wrap-up
Logged Encounters
2006 was a quieter year for encounters due to bad weather conditions. During our 4 week project we were able to load a further 40 unique encounters into the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library . We also collected and loaded many more photos from previous years.
We were able to identify a further 11 Whale Sharks bringing a total of 36 to the end of 2006.
Multi-year Encounters to end 2006
H-001 (2004, 2005)
H-006 (2002, 2005)
H-007 (2004, 2005, 2006)
H-008 (2000, 2004, 2006)
H-014 (2004, 2005)
H-018 (2005, 2006)
H-019 (2005, 2006)
Multi-year & Multi-location Encounters to end 2006
H-001
Belize 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006
Utila 2004, 2005
H-006 2001 Belize and 2002, 2005 Utila
H-008 2000 Belize and 2004, 2006 Utila
H-017 2002 Belize and 2005 Utila
H-021 2000, 2006 Belize and 2005 Utila
BZ-001
Belize 2005
Utila 2004, 2006
Project Status—2005 Wrap-up
Logged Encounters
During our 4 week project we had approximately 100 encounters, many of these were multiple encounters with the same whale shark. From these encounters we were able to load 53 unique encounters into the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library. We had 7 photographs in our photo library from earlier years which we were able to load into the database and we collected a further 16 encounters after the official project dates that we also loaded, giving us a total of 76 Utila encounters entered in the ECOCEAN database by the end of 2005.
Of the 53 encounters loaded from the 4 week project we were able to identify 21 individual whale sharks from their left-side spot patterns and 21 encounters were resightings of these same individuals. We have since identified a further 4 individuals from the photos taken up to the end of the year.
We originally thought that the whale sharks off Utila were just passing through, but it would seem that they stay off the north side of the island for some time. We know that a whale shark which was sighted in Utila in February was seen again 6 weeks later in mid March.
The average size of the whale sharks we observed was between 20ft and 30ft (6m and 9m), and the majority are young males. However, in 2004 we saw one of the smallest whale sharks we have ever seen, having an approximate size of 6ft (2m), and in 2005 we saw two young ones, one around 8ft (2.8m) and another at 12ft (4m). In the photographs below you can see our local staff holding a 3ft (1m) pole near the whale shark's body and tail. This whale shark was 29ft (9.6m) female.
 
Multi-year Encounters
We were very excited when we were able to match the photographs we had in our photo library from previous years to more recent photos from 2005. Of the whale shark photographs from previous years, we matched 4 of them to sharks we saw again in 2005. This began to suggest that the same sharks return each year for at least part of their life span. Among our multi-year Utila sightings are sharks:
H-001 2004, 2005
H-006 2002, 2005
H-007 2004, 2005
H-008 2000, 2004
In one example, the photograph of the Whale Shark H-006 from 2002 compared against its more recent photos from 2005 showed that it had grown by approximately 1.5 meters (4.5 ft).
Multi-year & Multi-location Encounters - Our big win for 2005!
The next exciting discovery in our research occurred when researchers from Belize began to load encounters into the ECOCEAN Library. Using shared data, we were able to match whale shark encounters recorded over a number of years in both Utila and Belize to sharks we had identified in 2005.
Using photos from our collected data, photos from other Utila divers, data from Lisa Carne in Belize, and data from Rachel Graham in Belize, we were able to piece together an excellent multi-year history for one of our sharks, H-001, including evidence of the shark moving between the north side of Utila and Gladden Spit Marine Reserve.
http://www.whaleshark.org/sharks.jsp?shark=H-001
Belize 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005
Utila 2004, 2005
This shark has now been identified 11 times, and we look forward to sighting it again in 2006!
It's interesting to note that the wire remnants of a plastic tag are visible on this animal in 2002, 2003 and 2005, and a second tag (seen in 2003) is fouled beyond readability and has disappeared completely in the photograph taken in 2005. This is great proof that digital, photo-based tagging is a better long-term solution and is much less invasive than plastic visual ID tags which leave rusty wires still trailing from the shark and metal pieces lodged under its skin years later!
We also noted the fact that shark H-001 went from Utila on April 22, 2005 to Gladden Spit, Belize on April 25, 2005, a distance of approximately 60 miles.
Other multi-year, multi-location encounters logged up until August 2005 include:
H-006 2001 Belize and 2002, 2005 Utila
H-008 2000 Belize and 2004 Utila
H-017 2002 Belize and 2005 Utila
H-021 2002 Belize and 2005 Utila
Special Thanks
We would like to thank Brad Norman who, started ECOCEAN, and Jason Holmberg, who wrote the whale shark identification software and came to visit us during our 2005 Whale Shark Research Project. A very big thank you to Dan Cain of Funky Fat Fish Productions, who sat on a small boat in the middle of the ocean ready to jump in at a minute's notice to film whale sharks. Many of the images on this site are from Dan.
Help us continue our work!
If you have any photographs of whale sharks taken in Utila at any time please submit them to the library by reporting them here on our web site! Just follow the Report an Encounter link above or click here.
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