Kodo's Journey
September, 2017: Sadly, it seems that Kodo’s tag is now on the beach in Merauke in southern Papua. We are hopeful that the tag simply worked its way out of his fin (something we’ve seen with a few other sharks after 16-20 months deployment), but it seems quite possible he was captured and killed. For a week or so the tag was transmitting from the fish market at Merauke, and now is on the beach. He had been hanging out in an area where there is a LOT of shrimp trawling, so it's possible the trawler pulled up his tag that had fallen to the bottom and now has it in their house. We’ll cross our fingers he’s still around - we’ve uploaded his ID into the global whale shark ID database, so perhaps one day he’ll show up in Australia or Indonesia. In the meantime, we’ve put out word to a colleague in Merauke and have asked him to try to locate the tag, as it's still transmitting, and offer a reward to the fisher who has it.
April, 2017: Kodo continues to amaze! As I noted previously, he made an epic journey up to Mindanao in the Philippines, down to Kei Islands, then down to Merauke off the swamps of south Papua, where he remained for a LONG time. By February he had moved north to Kaimana, remained there for quite some time, and most recently he’s been transmitting from the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia! He’s our first shark to hit 3 countries (Indonesia, Philippines and Australia)! As I mentioned previously, he broke his depth gauge unfortunately, but his movement data is spectacular. Hoping he comes back to Cendrawasih eventually so we can get that tag off and download!
February, 2017: As mentioned in my last update, Kodo has made one of the most incredible journeys of all the 23 whale sharks we’ve finmount tagged to date. After shooting up north to Mindanao (via Mapia and Palau), he then came south to the Kei Islands in the Arafura Sea, and then over to the coast of southern Papua, near the city of Merauke. Whale sharks have never been reported here, and I have to believe he’s feeding on small baitfish off the estuaries there - but it's a weird place to imagine a whale shark (massive mangrove swamps, huge estuaries and very shallow mud flats with terrible visibility and lots of salt water crocodiles). As noted previously, after hitting a max depth of 640m, he seems to have broken his depth gauge. We really hope at some point he returns to Cendrawasih so we can pull his tag off and download the high-res data of his amazing journey.
August, 2016: This shark has now laid one of the most interesting tracks of any of the 15 sharks we’ve tagged. When I last wrote, he had made it to Mindanao in the Philippines after having crossed through the waters of Palau. He has now shot south into the Arafura Sea in eastern Indonesia and is currently offshore of the Kei Islands! He’s now covered nearly 4000 km since leaving Cendrawasih Bay! Sadly, somewhere along the way, he managed to damage his depth sensor on his tag, and so we aren’t getting valid readings any more on depth, so his depth record will forever remain 640m until we change his tag. Not sure what happened here - we had this happen to one of the other previously tagged sharks as well - but in that case it was very clearly due to a deep dive approaching 2000m that seems to have basically pegged the gauge. Its possible that’s what happened here too.
June, 2016: Not a whole lot of data being transmitted from this shark, but what we have indicates he’s dived to 200m depth at least, and is sticking close to the place we tagged him.
April, 2017: Kodo continues to amaze! As I noted previously, he made an epic journey up to Mindanao in the Philippines, down to Kei Islands, then down to Merauke off the swamps of south Papua, where he remained for a LONG time. By February he had moved north to Kaimana, remained there for quite some time, and most recently he’s been transmitting from the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia! He’s our first shark to hit 3 countries (Indonesia, Philippines and Australia)! As I mentioned previously, he broke his depth gauge unfortunately, but his movement data is spectacular. Hoping he comes back to Cendrawasih eventually so we can get that tag off and download!
February, 2017: As mentioned in my last update, Kodo has made one of the most incredible journeys of all the 23 whale sharks we’ve finmount tagged to date. After shooting up north to Mindanao (via Mapia and Palau), he then came south to the Kei Islands in the Arafura Sea, and then over to the coast of southern Papua, near the city of Merauke. Whale sharks have never been reported here, and I have to believe he’s feeding on small baitfish off the estuaries there - but it's a weird place to imagine a whale shark (massive mangrove swamps, huge estuaries and very shallow mud flats with terrible visibility and lots of salt water crocodiles). As noted previously, after hitting a max depth of 640m, he seems to have broken his depth gauge. We really hope at some point he returns to Cendrawasih so we can pull his tag off and download the high-res data of his amazing journey.
August, 2016: This shark has now laid one of the most interesting tracks of any of the 15 sharks we’ve tagged. When I last wrote, he had made it to Mindanao in the Philippines after having crossed through the waters of Palau. He has now shot south into the Arafura Sea in eastern Indonesia and is currently offshore of the Kei Islands! He’s now covered nearly 4000 km since leaving Cendrawasih Bay! Sadly, somewhere along the way, he managed to damage his depth sensor on his tag, and so we aren’t getting valid readings any more on depth, so his depth record will forever remain 640m until we change his tag. Not sure what happened here - we had this happen to one of the other previously tagged sharks as well - but in that case it was very clearly due to a deep dive approaching 2000m that seems to have basically pegged the gauge. Its possible that’s what happened here too.
June, 2016: Not a whole lot of data being transmitted from this shark, but what we have indicates he’s dived to 200m depth at least, and is sticking close to the place we tagged him.