Featured Image Credit: Brad Norman, ECOCEAN
By Emily Persico
There’s plenty of fish in the sea, but Boo Boo the whale shark is special. Boo Boo has now been twice selected for scientific tracking, randomly chosen from an ocean of other whale sharks in both 2013 and 2015. The shark has inspired naturalists both young and old in his long journey across the ocean.
Boo Boo’s fame took off in 2013. Scientists, eager to learn more about whale sharks and promote their conservation, launched a naming competition for the shark, then referred to only as A-546.
After over 1,000 name entries, the winner was chosen: A-546 was christened Boo Boo in honor of Trent D’Silva, a 15-year-old who swam with whale sharks just before he passed away from a brain tumor.
“It was the highlight of his short life,” said Trent’s mother. “When we saw the competition to name the adopted whale shark, we thought it would be a lovely way to remember a wonderful boy.”
His tagging this time around has been celebrated by 16 schools in West Australia. Each school is participating for the first time in the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Race Around the World program, where schools are assigned a shark to track and compete with other schools in the area.
To make it fairer and more fun, we introduced a range of competitive criteria—which shark travelled furthest overall, which went farthest west, north or south, which swam over the deepest water or fed the most often, which shark reported in most frequently,” described Brad Normal, a marine scientist for ECOCEAN. “Every student could water their shark’s satellite track on our website every day.”
Researchers were learning from the tracking program, too. Over the course of the year, they were able to better understand the distribution of the immature sharks in the area.
“At this stage, we believe it’s food related and they tend to congregate [near Shark Bay] late in the year,” explained Dr. Norman.
ECOCEAN is an Australian non-profit that is dedicated to whale shark conservation. Their tracking program is critical to understanding the movements of whale sharks and engaging children in local schools.
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