Galapagos: Realm of Giant Sharks Page #2

Year:
2014
152 Views


University of California at Davis,

in an ambitious project to study

the movements of whale sharks

that pass by Darwin Island.

Most attempts to track them

have begun in places

where they come together

in large numbers

like the Sea of Cortez, off

the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

Here, billions of tiny crustaceans

called Copepods hatch at once,

turning the sea a milky grey.

That draws dozens of whale

sharks to feed on them.

You can often see them

feeding vertically

to get at the dense food concentrations.

Their arrival is a welcome

sight for schools of small

fish, which use them as shields.

With a band of skip-jack

tuna nearby, a school

gets as close as it can

to the giant shark.

The predators keep their distance.

This is only one of many gathering

spots for whale sharks.

You can find them off

the coast of Belize,

where they feed on the eggs of snapper

fish that spawn here in spring.

Or, you can find them off

the coast of Western Australia,

where coral spawn in massive numbers

just after the full moons

of March and April.

Alex Hearn:
Most of the studies that

have been done to date

have been focused on aggregation sites

where they come together to feed,

and those are mainly smaller

individuals, they're mainly males.

We have almost a unique

situation here, where we have

a large number of very

large, pregnant females.

Nothing is really known about

where they go to give birth,

how they mate, where they mate.

So there are a lot of questions that

still need to be answered out there.

Narrator:
The answers could

bring crucial information

to the battle to preserve

these ancient creatures.

Whale sharks have long been hunted

on a small scale for their liver oil,

used as waterproofing for wooden boats.

Known as tofu sharks,

they are now targeted by

fishing fleets for their

characteristic white meat,

and for fins that can fetch

around $50,000 each.

Shark fin soup is a staple at weddings

and fancy dinners in China.

This custom is believed

to be responsible for

millions of sharks killed each year.

Whale shark fins are in demand,

not so much for soup,

as for bold displays

designed to lure shark fin

buyers into stores, or

customers into restaurants.

Whale sharks are now under

the protection of the

of the Convention on International Trade

of Endangered Species, or CITES,

and the Convention on Migratory Species.

There is a growing momentum

to safeguard them,

especially in countries where tourists

spend millions of dollars each year

to swim with these gentle giants.

The docile nature of

whale sharks is what

allows the Galapagos

team to approach them,

then to clip DNA samples from fins or

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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