About The Book
Whale sharks are the largest of all fishes, fascinating for comparative studies of all manner of biological fields, including functional anatomy, growth, metabolism, movement ecology, behavior and physiology. These gentle ocean giants have captured the interest of scientists and the imagination of the public, yet their future is uncertain. The conservation status of whale sharks was upgraded to Endangered on the IUCN Red List and the species faces a range of intense threats from human activities. Can these iconic living animals, who have survived for millions of years, survive us?
Written by the world’s leading experts in whale shark biology, ecology, and conservation, Whale Sharks: Biology, Ecology and Conservation is the first definitive volume about the world’s biggest fish. Chapters include discussions of satellite-linked tags, used to track whale shark movements; genetic sequencing, to examine evolutionary adaptations; even the use of underwater ultrasound units to investigate the species’ reproduction. The editors hope that by collating what is known, they can make it easier for future researchers, conservationists, and resource managers to fill some of the remaining knowledge gaps, and provide the information they need to join the team.
As you work your way through this book, we hope that you will develop a sense of awe and marvel at all of our good fortune to share the ocean, and the planet, with this utterly extraordinary species.
The Interview With Simon Pierce, One of The Book Editor
The challenges of scientific research
What are some of the limitations of studying marine megafaunal species and is there a need for more pairs of eyes underwater?
Pierce: A major challenge we have is that there are just a few professional researchers spread across a massive ocean. Divers and snorkelers, and particularly guides, spend a lot more time in the water than most of us scientists do – and in different places as well. Enlisting their help to study marine megafauna has been a real asset for work on these rarely seen species.
The benefits of social media
How is social media becoming a tool for species identification, and for understanding the behaviour of marine megafauna?
Pierce: The growth of social media for image sharing, and the fact that even cheaper cameras can get good photos now, has helped us a lot. Several colleagues ha
ve set up Facebook Groups to crowdsource IDs and sightings, which has powered multiple scientific papers, and I find iNaturalist a very useful resource too. For highly mobile animals like whale sharks, social media is often the best way to track sightings in unexpected locations. Every year we’re getting a few reports from the fringes of their distribution now, in places like New Zealand.
Do MantaMatcher and Wildbook for Whale Sharks require photographers to submit their photos to the site, or can researchers take them directly from social media?
Pierce: We certainly encourage direct submissions to the photo libraries, but for whale sharks there’s now an ‘intelligent agent’ searching YouTube for encounters too. Each time a whale shark video is uploaded to YouTube and set to public access, the AI tool will add the shark to whaleshark.org and try to identify the individual. It’s adding more submissions each year than human contributors now.
What kind of studies are the data generated by citizen scientists being pulled into, and what kind of species-specific knowledge does the community hope to gain from citizen science based approaches?
Pierce: I’ve just been helping out on a study of whale sharks in Koh Tao, Thailand, based almost entirely on citizen science contributions. It’s the first data on the whale shark population in the country. From these public sightings, we can tell that the sharks are mostly small juveniles, transiting through these dive sites on their way to parts unknown. With more and more people getting involved, though, it’s entirely possible that other divers will be able to start telling us when these sharks turn up somewhere else!
As another example, I’ve just started a wobbegong shark ID program in Australia. For that, I need about 2,000 different wobbegong photos from varied conditions to train the machine learning algorithms. By myself, it could take months or years to gather the photos required, but by crowdsourcing photos using social media and other resources, like iNaturalist, my speed is limited only by how much time I want to spend on the computer.
The limitations
Are there any concerns that citizen scientists will disturb animals, and lead to problems with conservation measures in place? And can this possibility be mitigated through education?
Pierce: For the most part, the citizen science projects I’m involved in are all upside. There’s a hypothetical chance of disturbing the sharks, but the contributors all love these animals – it’s easy to educate and train them to take photos without causing any stress. There can be some issues with data verification, such as assigning an accurate sex and length to each sharks, but the ID photos themselves are quite binary; either they’re good, or not. If there’s a good photo, we can get plenty of information from that by itself.
The concept and other applications
Do you think social-media powered citizen science can bridge a gap between science and society?
Pierce: I’ve personally found citizen science to be a fantastic engagement tool for the research we’re doing but, more than that, it’s a great way to connect people with the animals themselves. It’s changing the dialogue from “I saw a manta ray today, pretty cool” to “wow, I saw Shelly, she’s been coming to this cleaning station for 12 years now!” People start appreciating that these animals are often locals too, and that we can all be involved in monitoring and protecting them. It’s just a really nice community to be a part of.
This piece was prepared online by Panuruji Kenta, Publisher, SEVENSEAS Media