No we weren’t referring to the arrival of the Chris Clarke and Dan Beecham of SOSF, although that would probably be fitting as well, but the return of several whale sharks we had seen in previous years!
Thanks to the wonders of I3S, the spot-matching computer programme that has revolutionised whale shark identification, we are being able to be far more productive in assessing the sharks seen around Seychelles. So far this year we have had a total of 16 sharks re-sighted from previous years and in September of 14 sharks identified to date 7 had been photographed in previous years.
Of these seven resightings, one shark had been seen in 2005, 2006 and 2007; four sharks had been seen in both 2006 and 2007; one in 2005 and 2006, and the last shark had been previously identified in 2003…..
So it seems that although the season is being somewhat slow compared to previous years, we are getting a lot of site-faithful sharks coming back… lets hope we can find a few compliant ones for Chris and Dan!