Good or bad guests? Understanding human disturbance in whitetip reef shark resting areas
Dive tourism is a key source of income in Gili Trawangan, Lombok, one of Indonesia’s most high-traffic hotspots. Britania is using underwater camera traps and passive acoustic recorders to document diver–shark interactions at Shark Point and Halik Reef, two highly frequented dive spots in a marine protected area with no formal guidelines for diver behaviour around shark habitats. The sites are key resting areas for juvenile whitetip reef sharks and places of high adult whitetip reef shark occurrence. Britania will also interview divers to assess awareness and perceptions of sharks and conservation, to create evidence-based recommendations to support sustainable tourism in Gili Matra Marine Protected Area.
Britania Hasiholan
Currently working passionately to keep my feet wet in the marine conservation field, I grew up in a major city in Indonesia and decided to channel my love for the ocean and animals into a Bachelor’s degree in marine science. Since my early days at university, I have been drawn to marine megafauna, particularly sharks and rays. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it was difficult to find field-related activities, I tried to keep up to date with the latest workshops, webinars and training related to the conservation of marine megafauna. This passion led me to get hands-on...
Good or Bad Guests? Understanding Human Disturbance in Whitetip Reef Shark Resting Areas, Gili Trawangan
Our objective is to initiate and provide evidence-based recommendations for managing the most frequently visited dive sites around Gili Trawangan in the Gili Matra Marine Park, which serve as key resting areas for juvenile whitetip reef sharks. We aim to achieve this by collecting data about human–shark interactions and by community outreach.
Whitetip reef sharks show strong site fidelity and their resting behaviour makes them vulnerable to disturbance in high-traffic tourism areas where there is limited management of the site, such as Gili Trawangan. This project will assess how disturbances affect juvenile whitetip reef shark populations at key dive sites and provide evidence that links research to policy for stronger protection of this species and its habitat.
The whitetip reef shark is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and the downward trend in its numbers has several causes, including overfishing, climate change and human disturbance. These sharks are found repeatedly at the same sites, often resting during the day. Juveniles in particular may be seen in rock crevices or coral caves, which makes them a popular attraction for divers. However, studies on interactions between divers and sharks reveal behavioural changes that may lead to changes in the sharks’ residency, how they use space, their abundance and their critical biological functions.
It is well known that tourism is of significant economic value and benefits local and foreign stakeholders. Dive tourism is especially important in Indonesia and nowhere more so than in the high-traffic area of the Gili Matra Marine Park. The two most popular dive sites at Gili Trawangan – Shark Point and Halik Reef – serve as key resting areas for juvenile whitetip reef sharks, and significant numbers of adults occur here too. Even though Gili Trawangan is located in a marine tourism park that has been protected since the 1990s, no formal guidelines exist for diver behaviour around shark habitats where monitoring of their carrying capacity is limited. Our field observations suggest that excessive and disturbing diver behaviour may affect the presence and behaviour of sharks at key sites. This is what motivated us to initiate this project. Using underwater camera traps and passive acoustic recorders, we will document and identify the effects of human disturbance on the behaviour of whitetip reef sharks at Shark Point and Halik Reef. We will also conduct interviews with divers to assess their awareness and perceptions of sharks and conservation. We believe that solid data and ecological evidence at a site-specific level can drive proper recommendations to support sustainable tourism in Gili Matra Marine Park.
- To monitor site-level tourism pressure at dive sites Shark Point and Halik Reef and understand the scale and type of disturbance.
- To assess how whitetip reef sharks respond to human presence and behaviour, especially in areas where they rest during the day.
- To generate evidence-based recommendations for protecting shark habitat and promoting sustainable dive tourism, in close collaboration with local stakeholders.