Whale Shark Photo-ID Library

Help convince the UN and national governments to protect whale sharks:

E-mail to Savedra Dive Center 09-22-04

Hello Savedra!

I recently learned about your whale shark sightings from your web site. It is very encouraging to see you recording your encounters with these amazing animals, and I was wondering if you have been taking any photos of them?

I am the programmer for a new whale shark research and conservation web site run by the Australian conservation society ECOCEAN, and we're working with Marine Conservation Society Seychelles and other groups to create a worldwide visual library of whale sharks. You can see it at:

http://photoid.whaleshark.org

To help us uniquely identify individual whale sharks from photographs, we just completed work on a pattern-matching system that allows us to scan for other photos of the same shark if we have good left- or right-side shots of the shark's natural skin patterning. This is an excellent and very possibly more reliable method of tracking these animals than traditional spear-based invasive tagging.

I was wondering if you would be willing to donate any of your images or video of whale sharks from Cebu to our Library? We collect data and photos and try to piece together migration routes and behavior in order to convince the UN and national governments to protect the animals. We can even organize your photos into a smaller Library that you can link to on your web site, showing your customers and researchers the sharks that you have sighted.

Your contribution would be greatly appreciated, and we have an automated e-mail system that will keep you up-to-date if we identify that shark as a new and previously uncataloged animal, if we identify and group it as an already cataloged animal, and if we sight your shark again in the future. We also have built-in image protection to prevent others from misusing any images that you submit and to protect your copyright.

Thanks for your consideration. I hope we will receive online encounter reports from you soon!

Many thanks,
Jason Holmberg
Programmer

ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-ID Library
http://photoid.whaleshark.org

REPORT A WHALESHARK - UPDATE:

We got another request from Jason to our divers

E-mail to Savedra Dive Center 07-19-05:

Dear Karl,

Would you be willing to encourage your customers to photograph the whale sharks you see? I have attached a perfect example of the photos we use to create "digital tags" based on the shark's natural spot patterning behind the gills. We can use these photos to start identifying the sharks you see each year and to study the population dynamics in your area.

We would be happy to help provide any info you think might enrich your customers' experiences diving with whale sharks and that might encourage them to photograph the sharks and to send their photos into the Library.

Many thanks, Jason Holmberg

whale shark cebu