Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo - (Page 20)

Swimming with Whale Sharks T hanks to Earthwatch Institute, people who would like to observe fur seals’ habits in the Bering Sea or document architectural motifs in Armenia can sign up to do just that. Earthwatch sends volunteers to Peru, Belize, Kenya, wherever they choose, and work for 10 to 15 days to help scientists collect data, and then another group takes their place. With between 2 and 20 volunteers at their disposal, scientists leading the research assign the untrained volunteers to the grunt work. Sounds boring, but people like me pay to do it because that work lets us see some breathtaking natural spectacles. From a computer inside a library sheltering me from upstate New York’s awful December, I signed up for the Whale Sharks of Ningaloo Reef in Australia. A few months later, I boarded a plane for a 24-hour flight, in hopes of helping to save a species weird and big enough to appear mainly Down Under. Fingerprinting Fish Lisa and Sinah, two teachers also from the U.S., and I joined researcher Brad Norman in Exmouth, by Alexander George Alex took this photo of a whale shark’s spots. Photos of the whale sharks had to be taken from the correct angle to work with the computer cataloging program. a city on the northwest corner of the continent. Whale sharks frequently congregate here, and his team works to monitor whale shark demographics and migratory patterns. Illegal fishing is the only major threat to whale sharks. But instead of asking South Pacific fishermen to have some scruples, Dr. Norman hopes to help develop an ecotourism industry that makes the fish more valuable alive than dead. Exmouth already has several businesses that take tourists out to see whale sharks up close, and as their success shows, people will pay more to swim next to one in the ocean than to have it as an entrée. Being able to track whale sharks’ migratory patterns and learn more about their habits gives potential ecotourism companies information necessary to set up shop. But following these fish as they migrate over thousands of nautical miles is hard. Marine biologists have tried attaching tracking devices to the fishes’ dorsal fins, but even the most sophisticated transmitters stop working when the whale sharks descend deep enough into the ocean. Dr. Norman has devised an unobtrusive and reliable way to monitor them. The spot patterns on a whale shark’s gills are unique, like a human’s fingerprint. A program Dr. Norman designed with information architect Jason Holmberg maps these spot patterns. The program first displays a photograph of a whale shark’s spots. Then the user clicks on the spots so the program can identify the pattern and save it, so if a volunteer or researcher photographs the same shark later, it can be identified. With enough repeat sightings of the same shark, its migratory path can be mapped. Dr. Norman’s idea changed the conventions for studying these animals and earned him a Rolex Award for his innovation. There’s only one way Dr. Norman can get photographs of those spots, which is why we volunteers were there. Three times during our ten days there, Sinah, Lisa, and I joined groups of tourists on their trips out to sea and photographed the whale sharks we encountered. Into the Deep Each day we’d take a converted shrimping boat out to deep ocean while a small airplane flew above to spot 20 imagine March/April 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo

Imagine Magazine - March/April 2008 Contents Letters Big Problems Big Picture In My Own Words Putting E-Waste in Its Place Big Juice Making Waves What Does "Green" Mean? Into the Woods Swimming with Whale Sharks Crash Course in Costa Rica Selected Opportunities & Resources Hooked on Logistics Off the Shelf Word Wise Middle Ground One Step Ahead Exploring Career Options Planning Ahead for College Students Review Creative Minds Imagine Sudoku Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.