Ahmedabad: confirm views held by many researchers and marine experts that the whale sharks found off the coast of Gujarat are part of the larger population found in the Arab Sea, the latest research papers on the world’s largest fish movement patterns say they are not possible to form separate sub-population.
This study entitled ‘The First Insight of the Horizontal Movement of Pope Sharks (Rhincodon Typus) in the North Arab Sea’ shows that unlike previous assumptions that whaled sharks came to Gujarat Beach from Australia and other regions, this whale shark was mostly found to move inside Arabian sea.
Previous studies including IUCN 2016 reports and genetic reports entitled ‘Phylogeography and the Pope’s Genetic Structure Population’ carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and the Wildlife Trust of India (WII) showed that the whaled sharks found along India were found throughout India , The beach, including Gujarat Beach, has no connection with those found in the Atlantic.
The latest paper, published on July 6 at the leading international journal border in marine science ‘, studied data from eight whaled sharks marked between 2011 and 2017 and monitored using satellite telemetry.
The satellite marking project is one of the longest conservation projects in the country carried out by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), the Forest Department of Gujarat and Tata Chemicals Ltd.
“Gujarat has set a good example of how the government, corporations and communities can do it work together to save this gentle giant.
This conservation model must be replicated in other coastal countries so whale sharks can enjoy the same freedom along the coast of India,” said BC Choudhury, Executive Trustee and Chairman of Advisor for WIs Waters Projects.
He led the Indian research team about this research.
Veraval in Gujarat is one of the largest aggregation sites in India where marking is done.
Tracking studies have been carried out in collaboration with the Australian Institute for Marine Science (AIMS) and includes nine researchers from the Indian and Australian institutes.
The findings of the research paper stated that whalish sharks traveled long distances after sea level (SST) and the boundaries between water mass and cold water flows.
Of the eight whale sharks marked, one is provided the longest track, traveling 2,229km more than 137 days.
Nomads justify this consistent remote migration with the idea that the whale shark prefers to occupy water mass with a temperature range of 24-29 degrees Celsius following the frontal zone (the frontal zone is the boundaries between two mass masses with different SSTs).
One of the marked shark tracks (WS-7) shows the animal across two thirds of the North Arab Sea and to Oman before the tag detached.
The pope shark marking in the Red Sea has shown some animals out of the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea, while the marking of sharks in the Persian Gulf has recorded the shark coming out of the Gulf of Oman and toured the Gulf of Aden.
Furthermore, the Pope Shark has also been found along the neighboring coast of the Persian Gulf, showing the extensive distribution of these animals in this area.
“Given the remote shark movement in the North Arab Sea and the lack of the main oceanographic boundaries in the region, there is little evidence (for now) to show that the population of whale sharks on the coast of India is likely to form a separate sub-population from existing Other parts of the Arabian Sea.
More tagging combined with high-resolution genetic studies will be needed to resolve this problem, “Study study.
Pope shark migration behavior, in combination with a slow growth rate, makes the population very susceptible to anthropogenic pressure, such as ship strikes, bycatch, fishing and pollution targeted.
Tagging produces tracks from different duration, with the most than 40 days, however, one tag remains attached to whale sharks for 137 days that allow more detailed inspection of their Oceanographic context in this region.
This longer track track is consistent with the suggestion that whale sharks tend to occupy water mass with temperatures in the range of 24-29 ° C and associated with the frontal zone.