To read news specific to Big Blue Tech - Click Here
With its cavernous mouth wide open the 30ft long fish looms up behind Sam and appears to be about to make an easy meal out of her.
But luckily for her the creature is a harmless whale shark that prefers the taste of plankton and small fish to human flesh.
Last night the Technical Diving Team took a night off to celebrate another Guy Fawkes night at Moov Bar. The event was hosted by Moov and Ace Marine Images to thank everyone for their support during their research into whale sharks in Koh Tao (which we have a lot of). Nothing really says thank you like a bon fire and free shots so you can imagine the turn out was quite high and then the ride home was most definetly messy.
Looking at the Ace Marine Images Website, you find the early buildings of a database. We’ve copied it below for all to see.
Currently we are processing hundreds of images to create the “fingerprint files”; the next step is to submit them all to several global databases to check where else, if anywhere, these sharks have been seen.
Feel free contact us at whaleshark@acemarineimages.com if you have any questions or need more information on how to prepare your images for submission.
Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are the largest fish in the world. The iconic status and placid nature of the species has made these sharks the subject of popular marine tourism industries. However, it has become increasingly evident in recent years that regional whale shark populations have suffered major declines. These declines are linked to directed fisheries targeting whale sharks for their fins and meat, and the continuing nature of this threat has led to whale sharks being listed as ‘Vulnerable’ internationally on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Though broadly distributed through tropical and subtropical waters, whale sharks are rare or seasonal throughout most of their range. Whale sharks are a highly migratory species and individual sharks are likely to regularly travel through multiple political jurisdictions, potentially varying from fisheries target to protected species as they do so. Thus, to effectively conserve the species it is important to assess its population status over broad geographical scales. Researchers need to estimate the size of remaining populations and whether the global whale shark population is subdivided into different stocks, which would then necessitate a series of independent regional population estimates. Though data is difficult to gather as individual scientists and research teams, these aims can be achieved relatively quickly and inexpensively through collaborative studies.
Good job guys and thanks for the free booze!
Big Blue Tech recently took earned a few days off to celebrate Halloween and relax after a solid month of diver training and exploration.
Back to work today to start a PADI Deep Diver and Enriched Air Diver course and it looks like the perfect time to go as reports of seeing 2 whale sharks at chumphon pinnacle have been circling around the dive school.
In fact, since returning from Hannah’s technical diving course and included liveaboard trip we’ve done a lot of Nitrox and Deep courses each one we’ve seen whale sharks. Despite the reports of monsoon weather, rain and bad visibility. We have, in fact, very hot and sunny weather with great visibility and it hasn’t rained a drop in almost a week.
Let’s hope they’re there tomorrow for Verena who starts her Nitrox Theory this afternoon
