On the trip to Sumbawa to tag whale sharks Bruce and Blueberry, the team discovered both female and male whale sharks. We have yet to discover where the females and males congregate together, so this is huge news!
From Abam, who tagged Bruce and Blueberry:
We managed to identify 15 different individuals of whale shark, 2 of which are females. This is a very rare occasion. We might have mentioned it to you while in Cenderawasih, from around 130 individuals that has been identified in Cenderawasih, only 3 of them are females. Unfortunately, I could only spend a limited amount of time in Sumbawa because I have to go to Merauke next week, but when we’re about to leave Saleh Bay to Sumbawa, we are notified that 2 different fishermen each reported that they had 10 whale sharks in their net in two consecutive days! I think if we spend some more time in the bay, we could be identifying more and more whale shark! Looking at the unique characteristic of the bay, it is possible that this bay could be the home to a big hidden whale shark population!
From Abam, who tagged Bruce and Blueberry:
We managed to identify 15 different individuals of whale shark, 2 of which are females. This is a very rare occasion. We might have mentioned it to you while in Cenderawasih, from around 130 individuals that has been identified in Cenderawasih, only 3 of them are females. Unfortunately, I could only spend a limited amount of time in Sumbawa because I have to go to Merauke next week, but when we’re about to leave Saleh Bay to Sumbawa, we are notified that 2 different fishermen each reported that they had 10 whale sharks in their net in two consecutive days! I think if we spend some more time in the bay, we could be identifying more and more whale shark! Looking at the unique characteristic of the bay, it is possible that this bay could be the home to a big hidden whale shark population!
Photo of Blueberry, Save the Blue's first female tagged whale shark.
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