Research

Tagging

Whale Sharks: 'Mandu' on track to Indonesia

Update: 7 August 2002.

Hope Traveller, so-named by a class of school children at Exmouth District High School, shed her tag before reaching Christmas Island, according to CSIRO shark specialist Dr John Stevens.

To overcome the shedding of tags which has been a problem in this project CSIRO engineers and technicians have developed a new method to attach the tag to the dorsal fin. This was used on Mandu, the second shark to be successfully tagged this year.

Mandu, a 7.3 metre male whale shark is following a separate ocean path to Hope Traveller, heading north west away from Ningaloo Reef and towards Indonesian waters. Ningaloo Reef is a Marine Park along 260 km of coastline and out to 15 nautical miles offshore. The whale sharks are tagged during the annual aggregation months of April to June.

Mandu was tagged in June in a co-operative effort between the CSIRO, the WA Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) and the Ningaloo Marine Park whale shark ecotourism industry. The tagging team consisted of Roland Mau and Adam Meyer, from the Department of Conservation and Land Management, with Peter Lake and David Hall representing whale shark tourism operators.

The tagging was recorded by videographers Lindsey Alsap and Kristin Anderson.

Scientists are using the Argos satellite system to track the whale shark’s movements after they leave Ningaloo Marine Park.

“We are hoping to get another 11 months of information from this shark and that will be a significant advance for research of these animals," Roland said.

Hope Traveller was tracked for 2,000 kilometres before shedding her tag.

Mandu has traveled 1740 kilometres since being tagged on June 28.

The project is being funded by Woodside Energy Ltd, CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and DCLM, with assistance from ECOCEAN. A grant from the Natural Heritage Trust has provided ECOCEANand CALM with funding to conduct an 'Urgent Risk Assessment' of the conservation concerns for the shark.

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Last updated 12/11/08