Dhigurah School Search Party Recover Joeys Tag!
14th August 2009
The search party led by Dhigurah School head master, Hussein Fayaz, were given information including pictures and maps of the tags approximate location by Dr Brent Stewart who had been alerted via satellite that the tag had released from WS067 ‘Joey’ on the 3rd of August.
By using the maps provided by Dr Stewart and with the assistance of members of the Ariadhoo community they started searching the beach on the North West side of Ariadhoo. After over an hour of searching all their hard work was rewarded.
The tag has recorded the movements of Joey, a shark that was the victim of a fining attempt in May 2008, along with depth and water temperature for over 3 months and was one of 10 pop-up PAT tags and 10 Archival tags deployed in April and May of this year by Dr Stewart of Hubbs Sea-World Research Institute and the MWSRP as part of an on-going collaborative study into the movements of Maldivian whale sharks.
Dr Stewart was delighted by the find because of the quality of the information held in the recovered tag; ‘’there is substantially more data in the tag’s memory which we can retrieve if we get the tag back that we can’t get through satellite, so recovery of the tag is extremely valuable to learn about the whale shark’s movements and diving behaviours. This is awesome news and an excellent effort…..sounds like it was a fun, rewarding and productive experience for everyone!’’, he added.
Adam Harman of MWSRP and Dr Brent Stewart will have the opportunity to retrieve the tag and thank everyone involved in person when they visit South Ari next month. In the mean time the MWSRP would like to thank the children and staff of Dhigurah school and the people of Ariadhoo Island for their assistance and hard work.