Red Sea Whaleshark sightings

[oceangirl]

Hi,

Is there a way to view all the whale shark encounters in the Red sea only? I have tried and failed to sort all encounters by location.

I have heard there have been several sightings in between Ras Mohammed and Southern Red sea areas, especially in the last few weeks and would like to see just how many are being reported.

Many Thanks

[Jason Holmberg]

We have not been receiving these reports. If you can, please encourage others to report them to us.

Thanks,
Jason Holmberg
ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library
http://www.whaleshark.org

[David Rowat]

Not really on this subject, but I do know that a number of sightings have been made further North on the Saudi Arabian coast this year... unfortunately resulting in one 5m youngster being caught and landed in the Creek at Jeddah. I have no idea why the shark was caught, nor what was done with it apart from seeing the photos of it on a boat-trailer leaving the creek area..... sad!

[oceangirl]

Hi Jason,

I am trying to encourage encounters to be logged by giving the site address and leaflets that show the way to photograph. Also I generally try to increase awareness by word of mouth. Hopefully a magazine article will go in our local press this month too to increase awareness and knowledge.  There have been a number of sightings over the last few weeks but of course it is difficult to establish if its the same ones when the info is sketchy.

Do you have any other ideas I could do? is there any material you have created that I can send to the conservation organisations or dive centres here in the Red sea? The best way to communicate here is by emails.

thanks

[samaka]

I just found out about this site from my friend Helen.

I've reported a sighting a few minutes ago (Bluff Point - Northern Red Sea, early May). 

I've been living in Hurghada - Egypt for quite some time and know alot of divve guides and instructors. I will try to spread the word to all my friends here.

.......anders.......

[oceangirl]

Another sighting has been reported to me by phone from dive guide on liveaboard leaving from Port Ghalib

12th May 2007 11am
6-8 metres in length - unsure as was brief encounter from surface and dived down
Marsa Mubarak, Marsa Alam, Red Sea
( not really enough info do anything except stick a pin in the map!?)not the first sighting around Marsa Alam area for sure - and had vague report last week of another one in Fury Shoal area........

Very interesting to see R-006 has been logged in the last days - this is some 200km away!!! how many are there ?? Spread the word and get reporting:)

Ps Thanks Samaka x

[oceangirl]

The search for R-007 is on !

Sudan guides are back on land and have video footage from end of March at Shaab Rumi....

[Jason Holmberg]

This is really wonderful! Thanks for coordinating this information. Any chance of getting the video from the Sudan reported into the ECOCEAN Library with frame grabs to show the patterning?

Cheers!
Jason Holmberg
ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library
http://www.whaleshark.org

[oceangirl]

Hi Jason -
 I have the video Clip and permission from the videographer for the Shaab Rumi encounter - and will log it today. The delay of course is that guides spend large chunks of their time on the sea and very little time land based. The dive community here has quite a good grape-vine so we are catching some reports and spreading the word to encourage people to report or collecting data from them and reporting on their behalf.

is there a way to log encounters without photos?

[Jason Holmberg]

Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing clips from the video.

You can definitely log encounters without photos. In the "Image 1" field, type "no photo" (you can really type anything). We call encounters without photos "DATA-ONLY," and they don't appear on the main site, but they are there for the research community that logs into the library to use for non-mark-recapture research.

Cheers,
Jason

[oceangirl]

Hi !

Another Whale Shark sighting at Daedalus Reef on June 5th 2007 - reported in by a very grumpy guide (he missed it!)  His guests saw the 4 - 5m whale shark on the surface just before they were about to fall off the zodiac for their second dive of the day - a data only encounter but this brings the total encounters to 6 since April of this year

ps Jason how did you get on with the clip from shaab rumi?

[oceangirl]

.........and 3 more sightings in Sharm at Ras Rahni -Tiran and Shark Reef , Ras Mohamed...... really need to have some more "spotters" over there!

[oceangirl]

Since the Whale Shark Awareness RED SEA Project got underway in June reports have been coming in from El Gouna, Hurghada, Sudan and North as far as Sharm and Tiran.

Dive centres are getting involved by distributing leaflets and contact cards to encourage divers and snorkelers to report their sightings and take photos for the ID Library. The dive centres are also selling T shirts to promote the project.


The latest sightings were in the navigation channel around the area of the Thistlegorm, the whale shark swam alongside a liveaboard - the same group of divers had encountered another whale shark the day before at Shark Reef in Ras Mohammed Marine Park so were ecstatic, the photos suggest it was a different one to that seen on the surface. The guide on board was particularly thrilled as he has seen three this year - two of which only made a brief appearance.

Whale Shark sightings have been reported in the Red Sea every month since Sept 2006 with the exception of Dec ( bit cold out! ) and the increase of reports for July suggest that the project is working well as more people learn about the photo Id Library.

Archive video footage and previous photos are being sought as well as photos from the recent sightings... at the moment the Awareness Team are playing catch up but all the progress so far seems to suggest that there will be some positive photos very soon - we are on the way to find R-008!

Dive centres who are involved recieve sms sighting reports whenever there is a positive sighting to increase the possibilty of getting photos.

If any readers are based in the Red Sea and are able to help by becoming an "Official Spotter" or you would like to get your dive centre involved please contact
info@whalesharkredsea.com

Happy Diving from Egypt

[oceangirl]

Hi there!

Something new to read as we are getting so many hits on this section!

The latest news from the Red Sea is that we now have 10 whale sharks! It is great news - all the dive centres involved are very excited and are promoting the local project and encouraging their guests to take photos.

July alone had 12 reported sightings from all over the Red Sea and the most recent sighting was on 5th August at Halg Disha in Hurghada.

The H20 magazine distributed through the Red Sea has a seven page feature article on whale sharks in the latest issue including the code of conduct so we hope to get feedback from this too.

Whale Shark Awareness Red Sea
Happy Diving from Egypt