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SRI is embarking on year round research in the
Sea of Cortéz, at its newly built permanent
field station, courtesy of Club Cantamar. |
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With the use of an ultralight airplane to conduct
aerial surveys to spot whale sharks and mantas,
radioing the information to the research boat
and directing it to find the animals. |
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Whale Shark Study :
Program Director : Dr. Alex Antoniou, Director
of Field Operations.
Operation Whale Shark is SRI's ongoing project
to study the Whale Shark, which is the largest
fish in the sea, reaching lenghts of 40-60 ft.
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Always
gentle, always kind |
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Plankton
feeders, these gentle giants are harmless to man,
and very rare, by 1986 there had been only 320 recorded
sightings in all of western scientific literature,
and because of this rarity, they were never considered
a ''commercial '' species and little research has
been done on them. By the mid-1990's, whale sharks
became a target species for Asian fisheries.
Today, giant fishing fleets sit astride the sharks'
migration routes and ''harvest'' them in unprecedented
numbers.
The goal of Operation Whale Shark is the worldwide
protection of the species, from the start point that
they are worth much more as a touristic resource than
slaughtered, so, it is vital that SRI continues gathering
data in order to concentrate conservation efforts
in those areas where the sharks are at higher risk.
Since 1993, SRI has deployed visual and satellite
tags, and collected mtDNA samples, to determine migration
routes, day-to-day habits, and if the population is
related or isolated in different regions.
Hammerhead Shark Study :
Designed to determine population size and whether
this is a resident or migratory group of scalloped
hammerhead sharks.
Manta Ray Study :
To determine population size and identify individual
animals and asses migratory paths. During one aerial
survey in Oct. 2001, over 100 mantas were sighted.
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