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April 7 - NINGALOO BLUE TEAM -WHALE SHARK GUIDE QUALIFIED

April 7th, 2008 by Kat

YAY - it’s going off up here on the Ningaloo Reef. The Whale Sharks have been reliable for the most part of this season; out of 7 days they have been sighted every day; although there were 2 days where we were unable to swim with them; as they just didn’t want to know about us.

Tonight myself and our 2 gem spotters - Yoshi and Emily all attended the DEC (Dept of Environment and Conservation)
Whale Shark Interaction Guiding course.

In previous years I didn’t believe it would be necessary for me to attend as I work in the shop; but decided to support ‘the team’ and go this year. I am SO GLAD that I did; I learned so much!!

I have been doing this job for hmm well; this is my 5th season; and I love every second of it! I do wish I got to go on the boat more; but someone has to hold the office together :)

So the night was information packed; DID YOU KNOW that when the last lot of satelling tagging was done on the Whale Sharks; they were recorded going to gepths of 1500m; that is when the tags stopped working!!! How AMAZING is that??

And that big 18m shark that was killed in Taiwan years ago; the one with the 300 babies inside it at ALL DIFFERENT sizes of development; well a few of the babies who were at about 50cm in length were still alive; so they sent them to an underwater observatory in Japan!

Sad about the mother; but we would never have know that the Whale Sharks produce in such a way without the information being recorded.

There is so little known about many of the Whale Sharks characteristics; so I guess any information is useful!


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