Indonesia Dreams Whale Sharks Raja Ampat Mysteries

Image: Hanli Prinsloo Freediver from I am Water Foundation in Raja Ampat Background

Indonesia has been dreaming Whale Shark conservation actions for the past years and is turning those dreams into reality. Teaming up with Conservation International, Government, local fishermen and local communities Indonesia's Bird's Head Raja Ampat -the most rich Ocean environment of the World is now reaping results on a inspiring Whale Shark program. 

On July 7 Conservation International honored Whale Shark by giving anyone the chance to name one of the Whale Sharks they have been tagging and tracking in Indonesia. After more than one year tagging Whale Sharks in Indonesia Scientists have been able to reveal some secrets, challenge established Whale Sharks beliefs and recognized a whole range of unsolved new and old mysteries yet to be answered. 

Conservation International explains that Bird's Head in Indonesia is the Epicenter of Marine Biodiversity. This is where CI works every day with Whale Sharks. Here Whale Sharks coexist with a wide array of marine creatures. It is estimated that 75% of all World's Coral Species call Indonesia home along with 1.7 thousand species of fish and still counting. Incredibly the area has been witnessed to thrive amidst global climate change, acidification and coral bleaching. Biodiversity of Indonesia is being at multiple levels including policy in action.

In the past weeks it has all been about Whale Sharks. Findings of the CI Tag and Track Whale Sharks Programs for the past year finally come to light. Whale Shark individuals like “Mitch” tagged October 29 2015 or the Whale Shark first known as 14D4883 and later called “Sharky Mc Sharkface” with 4.5 meters of length are the stars of this Indonesian Ocean Program. 

Conservation International explains that there are many things that Whale Sharks do that most people probably don't know they do. Along with all other Sharks, they keep food webs in check, could hold cures for diseases such as human cancer and infections and keep the global cycles and carbon cycles in motion but it is the secrets and mysteries which they want to solve. 

On July 6 Dr Mark Erdmann of CI spoke about unlocking the mysteries of the giants of the deep. 

“Rhincodon typus is the World’s largest fish, reaching a whopping 18 meters in length and weighing up to 21 tons. Its economic impact is just as massive. A recent study on whale shark tourism in a single atoll in the Maldives showed that tourists there spend nearly 10 million USD every year for the privilege of swimming with Whale Sharks. Countries as diverse as Belize, the Seychelles and Australia similarly nurture multimillion-dollar whale-shark tourism industries”... 

But…”despite their impressive size and economic stature, we surprisingly still know very little about whale sharks,” Dr Erdmann said. 

Because Whale Sharks -unlike Cetaceans like Whales and Dolphins do not need to breathe air they can literally disappear under the depths for months or even years. The secrets of their lives were mostly hidden until now. 

The big question are many and CI has some answers.

“In order to better protect the whale sharks in the Bird’s Head, it is important to understand their movement patterns and behavior. For instance, we need to know if these sharks truly reside year-round in the region, or if they wander outside Indonesian waters and into areas where they may be at risk of being snared in massive drift gill nets or deep-water trawl fisheries. To find out, we’ve been working with the Indonesian Ministry of Fisheries and local agencies to deploy satellite tags on these massive animals in hopes of divulging their secrets,” Dr. Erdmann revealed. 

Since it all began CI already deployed 16 Whale Shark tags. Scientists assure that the program has delivered information beyond their highest expectations. 

The Whale Shark Tag Program has challenged all beliefs of Whale Sharks. Despite spanning over 15 meters in length and extremely capable of taking on really long-distance migrations -thousands of  kilometers, tagged Whale Sharks revealed that they prefer to “stay at home”. At Indonesia they “seem largely content to stay put and feast upon the abundant silverside baitfish which seem to be their preferred food in the Bird’s Head Seascape”.

The finding “goes against the common wisdom that whale sharks are highly migratory animals that move to target seasonally plentiful food sources like synchronous coral or tuna spawning”. Why do Whale Sharks in Indonesia stay at home when others are believed to migrate year round? “Why would you migrate away from an all-you-can-eat buffet?” CI Scientists respond with another question. 

Digging even deeper scientists discovered that despite these tagged Whale Sharks spent most of the year in Cendrawasih Bay and lived there all year round they did take on “long flash road trips” and returned home after that. 

With thousands of connected islands the underwater environment where the study takes place is unique. Whale Sharks navigated around Papua New Guinea, Palau, Micronesia, Philippines and other close islands. 

“Whale Sharks tagged at Cendrawasih Bay always return home after taking on these road trips,” CI revealed.

“We have no idea why they went so far -one shark covered 4,000 kilometers before returning to the bay, for such short periods of time. Although we suspect that the journeys of some of the larger males might be related to mating, several of these traveling sharks have actually been juvenile males under 4.5 meters leaving us scratching our heads!” Scientists assure that not all mysteries have yet been revealed. 

Scientists working the program also challenged the common belief that Whale Sharks are mostly surface dwellers. “Whale sharks can dive Really Deep!,” they reported. Tagged Southern Cendrawasih Bay Whale Sharks feed usually at 100 meters depths but take on depth diving of up to 625 meters when they move into deeper waters. 10 of 16 tagged Whale Sharks descended more than 600 meters and two small Whale Sharks dived to record set depths of 1.8 thousand meters. 

“Are they diving to find food, or for other reasons? It’s still unclear,” CI adds. 

Scientist were also baffled by other mysteries. Despite tagging 16 Whale Sharks most of them were adolescent males and none were females. “Where are all the females?” they asked. 

“Where are the large adults? And where are the babies? Where do they mate, and where do they give birth? It’s amazing that these very basic questions are still largely unknown for Whale Sharks not only in the Bird’s Head, but Worldwide. It’s a reminder of just how little we know, even today, about life in the sea,” they assured. 

Indonesian waters keep many secrets to itself. One of them is linked to resilience and ability to strive in midst of climate change impacts. International Press reported on July the recent months reports which rise from the 13th International Coral Symposium in Honolulu Hawaii and NOAA expose the alarming levels of climate change-induced coral bleaching on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and many other locales across the Pacific Ocean Raja Ampat Indonesia is under “scant” evidence of coral bleaching. The Global Coral Bleaching which NOAA expects to outlive until the end of 2016 driven by El Niño and its aftermath will affect severely US Coasts. The same event is expected to affect more than half of corals of the Great Australian Barrier as well as cause coral mortality across the globe. 

“I’ve just come back from a two-week expedition in Raja Ampat, an archipelago within Eastern Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape, and I’m pleased to report that our team saw scant evidence of bleaching in the global epicenter of marine biodiversity,” Dr. Erdmann shared on late June. 

Conservation International has its eye on these regions because they are part of a complex web which includes Manta Rays, Sea Turtles and other systems which provide food and income for more than 760 thousand Indonesians who live along the shores.

“But that wasn’t always the case: A little over a decade ago, this underwater paradise was decimated by unregulated commercial fishing, poaching and damaging practices such as dynamite fishing. By the 1990s, some fisheries were reporting a decline of up to 90% catch per unit effort,” CI explains.

After 12 year s of working at Indonesia Conservation International assures that they brought the waters back from the “brink of ruin”. They chose to team up with communities which depend on the ocean to save them. Together they work of 2.5 thousand islands spread across what reef scientists call a “Specie Factor” and a “Cauldron of Evolution”. 

It was in 2015 when CI scientists began attaching for the first time a satellite transmitter to the dorsal fins of Whale Sharks in the region. No scientists had been able to attach a transmitted because it was believed that Whale Sharks could not be fished but local fishermen who told over and over the story on how Whale Sharks in Indonesia get trapped in their nets ultimately played a vital role in allow the transmitters to go live. 

“Over the past year, we’ve learned a lot about the charismatic species, including their migratory movements and diving behavior -much of it new to science,” Conservation International Team working on ground with Whale Sharks in Indonesia said. 

The Government of Indonesia working with CI created 12 MPA in Indonesia Bird's Head which cover of 3.6 million hectares. Birds Head is often used as an example for MPA creations. The Bird's Head Seascape Initiative is the name of the Marine Protected Area MPA where all programs work. The MPA was among the first MPA of many MPAs created in an international wave of new MPAs which have risen in the past decades -expanding Global Protected Surface of the Ocean significantly to reach the UN set goal of 30% of oceans water protected. 

“These MPAs employ local people to survey and protect coasts, reefs and fish, empowering communities to protect and sustainably manage their resources and their livelihoods. Since the initiative’s inception, fish populations have rebounded; sharks, whales and rays have returned; poaching by outside fishers is down 90%; coral is recovering; and ecotourism has flourished,” Conservation International still leading the programs assures. 

Conservation International keeps dreaming big and wants the World to dream along with them. They released recently a “Virtual Dive” campaign which is solely focused on diving in Indonesia Raja Ampat and Birds Head. 

This unique area holds more species of fish than the entire Great Barrier Reef and more species of coral than the Caribbean Sea including  75% of the World’s coral species, 40 Species of Shark and Rays, 1.7 thousand known Species of Fish and 3% of the World’s mangroves. Truly a Dream Come True. Dreaming Whale Sharks, Raja Ampat, Birds Head, Indonesia, Dreams on hoping one day its mysteries will be fully revealed...Awake.