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Tales of enormous creatures like the terrifying megalodon shark and five-story-tall dinosaurs appear to belong in the past, before the rise of humans. The Galapagos whale shark is just one of the peculiar and exotic creatures that call the archipelago home. It is a land unlike any other. With a maximum length of 20 meters and a weight estimated to be over 30 metric tons, the whale shark is the largest fish in the ocean. Despite its enormous size, the whale shark is relatively unknown to science and has very little knowledge.
To improve our understanding of the role that the Galapagos Marine Reserve plays in the whale shark migration pattern and of their migration pattern in general, as well as to gain important insights into their life and work toward their conservation, the Galapagos Conservation Trust, the Charles Darwin Foundation, the Galapagos National Park, and other organizations are currently supporting the ground-breaking Galapagos Whale Shark Project. Through this research, the group hopes to learn vital information about whale sharks, including where they breed, give birth, and which waters they frequent in their early years, and to develop strategies for managing whale sharks in the Marine Reserve.
What exactly is a Galapagos whale shark?
In reality, these massive Galapagos whale sharks are incredibly gentle giants that frequently swim around massive schools of Galapagos fish without consuming a single fish. Plankton, tiny creatures that float with the current and are one of the main components of the base of the aquatic food chain, provides practically all of the support for these enormous species. Except for the Mediterranean, all tropical and warm waters are home to whale sharks. Regretfully, the whale shark is in grave danger as the IUCN Red List revealed that it may soon be classified as endangered rather than vulnerable.
In addition to their enormous size, these sharks may be identified by their light yellow patterns and dark gray skin, which can reach up to 4 inches in thickness. This is similar to how zebras can be recognized by their stripes. Furthermore, a whale shark’s mouth is at the front of its head, as if it were a large slit carved into the end of its broad, flat skull, in contrast to most other sharks whose mouths are positioned at the bottom section of their heads. These sharks swim with their gills open, allowing them to filter feed on large amounts of plankton.
Why Galapagos?
The Galapagos whale shark has occupied the waters near Wolf and Darwin islands for almost a year, so the project is concentrated in this archipelago. Due to the abundance of plankton in the waters surrounding Galapagos, whale sharks almost always feed in these waters, although most of them only pass through the islands as they migrate. A considerable proportion of whale sharks reside in the area around the archipelago. However, because over 90% of the whale sharks in the Galapagos Marine Reserve appear to be heavily pregnant females, the reserve seems particularly crucial for these sharks. Research on these sharks may yield valuable insights into the ecology of whale shark reproduction.
The Galapagos Whale Shark Project
Twenty-four whale sharks were successfully tagged in 2011 so that the project could follow them with satellites and report the sharks’ positions each time they surfaced. To get further data, the researchers revisited the islands in 2014 and 2015 and tagged 23 more sharks using picture identification techniques. As a result, the crew could determine the sharks’ general movement pattern.
Although none of the tagged sharks spent more than a few days in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, their consistent presence throughout the archipelago suggests that the reserve is a significant stop on their migratory path, especially for pregnant females. The crew is also collecting tissue samples as they continue to tag and identify more sharks that come through the reserve this year. To determine the whale sharks’ principal habitats and ensure that these areas are preserved, the team is collecting information about the whale sharks’ migratory patterns.
