During June and July, several sharks were identified and seen again on a number of subsequent occasions; one tagged shark (from 2005?) was sighted but unfortunately the number was not noted.

This season we have two volunteer pilots flying our micro-light aircraft: Johan Anderson, seasoned veteran of the MCSS aerial survey for the last four years, is joined by Guy Blaine who has a lot of experience in game spotting from micro-light aircraft and shark spotting on the Sardine Run off South Africa’s coast. This year, as ever, the survey flights are turning up some interesting information, the most unusual to date being a humpback whale and calf spotted off Police Bay on 24th of August.

To date five monitoring trips have been run and seven sharks have been tagged with AquaSign marker tags. As of the 23rd September, a total of 192 whale shark sightings were reported with 78 in-water encounters. A total of 46 sharks were identified. Thirty seven sharks were sexed (30 M / 7 F). With regard to re-sighting, 4 sharks were re-sighted from this season, and 1 from last season.

Aerial survey’s using the MCSS Micro-light started in August, with a total of 26 flights (up to date of publication) lasting 42 Hrs 42minutes. 147 Aerial sighting of whale sharks were reported with a max of 22 on one flight.

Dive Centres that are members of the Seychelles Whale Shark Monitoring Network are reminded that if you would like to offer whale shark encounters and are prepared to contribute to the costs of the programme you can get full aerial support from MCSS. We will provide you with two of the research team to join you on board your boat, one to coordinate communications with the micro-light aircraft and the other to guide and record observations of the sharks encountered. This does need to be booked in advance so please contact Elke Talma on info@mcss.sc for full particulars.