Ke'Opulupulu's Journey
September, 2017: We had hoped to see him in Cendrawasih during our trip, but unfortunately Ke'Opulupulu didn't come say hello. His tag seems to have gone quiet again since late June/early July, when he was around Kwatisore. We're hoping we can find him when we are back in Cendrawasih in October for a few weeks.
April, 2017: I’m delighted to say he’s reappeared! As I mentioned previously, he had stopped sending location data as of October 2016. However, in late February he suddenly started pinging again, and now we are getting regular location data from him again! Interestingly, he’s headed back out of the bay and is hanging out SE of Biak, same area as he went to last March/April! Very cool to see him repeating a behaviour - this is a huge benefit of having data that spans more than a year - we can see if behaviours are cyclical. Max depth still 625m.
February, 2017: Not much new information to give on Ke’Opulupulu. He was the first of your sharks to make a move, and he has made a lot of interesting movements just outside of Cendrawasih Bay in the deep water off Biak. He hit a maximum depth of 625m during that time, then returned to Kwatisore, where he’s been hanging ever since. We are going to be doing a big expedition to Kwatisore in July with the Georgia Aquarium for a 2-week health assessment of the sharks, and we will be capturing any sharks we see with tags on them and downloading them.
August, 2016: As with the last time I wrote, he seems content to hang out in Kwatisore region after having returned from his “walkabout” to the NE of Biak. He’s still in Cendrawasih after returning from his cool trip north and east of Biak. As I noted earlier, he’s apparently enjoying a good feed in Kwatisore region. Interestingly, of the 10 previously-tagged sharks, 7 of them are now hanging out back in Kwatisore too - even the ones that did the epic journeys up to Mariana Trench or down to the Sepik River outlet in Papua, New Guinea. We seem to be seeing an overall trend, now that we have a number of tags that have either passed the 1 year mark or are soon approaching it, that shows most of the sharks hanging out in Kwatisore from May until about December, at which point many seem to get restless and leave temporarily, returning to Kwatisore by May. That at least appears to be the trend from June 2015 through August 2016, and it will be interesting to see if that holds for 2017 as well. Max depth recorded for Ke’Opulupulu is still 625m.
June, 2016: Ke'Opulupulu has been a busy shark!! Soon after we tagged him, he went North and hung out on south coast of Biak for quite some time, then did something we’ve not yet seen from any whale shark - he shot out into the deep blue and hung out for a while north of Biak, then moved southwest a bit and has been hanging out for a while in an area just on the continental shelf break. The data we have indicates he’s dived to at least 625m depth, but I suspect he may have gone deeper and hopefully we eventually see that. No idea what he is doing out there, but VERY interestingly, one of the sharks we tagged in October 2015 (153665) has been very closely following him - also going north of Biak for a while and then to the SW in the middle of the ocean. This is really cool, as we have no idea what they are doing!
April, 2017: I’m delighted to say he’s reappeared! As I mentioned previously, he had stopped sending location data as of October 2016. However, in late February he suddenly started pinging again, and now we are getting regular location data from him again! Interestingly, he’s headed back out of the bay and is hanging out SE of Biak, same area as he went to last March/April! Very cool to see him repeating a behaviour - this is a huge benefit of having data that spans more than a year - we can see if behaviours are cyclical. Max depth still 625m.
February, 2017: Not much new information to give on Ke’Opulupulu. He was the first of your sharks to make a move, and he has made a lot of interesting movements just outside of Cendrawasih Bay in the deep water off Biak. He hit a maximum depth of 625m during that time, then returned to Kwatisore, where he’s been hanging ever since. We are going to be doing a big expedition to Kwatisore in July with the Georgia Aquarium for a 2-week health assessment of the sharks, and we will be capturing any sharks we see with tags on them and downloading them.
August, 2016: As with the last time I wrote, he seems content to hang out in Kwatisore region after having returned from his “walkabout” to the NE of Biak. He’s still in Cendrawasih after returning from his cool trip north and east of Biak. As I noted earlier, he’s apparently enjoying a good feed in Kwatisore region. Interestingly, of the 10 previously-tagged sharks, 7 of them are now hanging out back in Kwatisore too - even the ones that did the epic journeys up to Mariana Trench or down to the Sepik River outlet in Papua, New Guinea. We seem to be seeing an overall trend, now that we have a number of tags that have either passed the 1 year mark or are soon approaching it, that shows most of the sharks hanging out in Kwatisore from May until about December, at which point many seem to get restless and leave temporarily, returning to Kwatisore by May. That at least appears to be the trend from June 2015 through August 2016, and it will be interesting to see if that holds for 2017 as well. Max depth recorded for Ke’Opulupulu is still 625m.
June, 2016: Ke'Opulupulu has been a busy shark!! Soon after we tagged him, he went North and hung out on south coast of Biak for quite some time, then did something we’ve not yet seen from any whale shark - he shot out into the deep blue and hung out for a while north of Biak, then moved southwest a bit and has been hanging out for a while in an area just on the continental shelf break. The data we have indicates he’s dived to at least 625m depth, but I suspect he may have gone deeper and hopefully we eventually see that. No idea what he is doing out there, but VERY interestingly, one of the sharks we tagged in October 2015 (153665) has been very closely following him - also going north of Biak for a while and then to the SW in the middle of the ocean. This is really cool, as we have no idea what they are doing!