Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - Demo - (Page 21)

A group of tourists and Earthwatch volunteers waits to jump in and swim with a whale shark. whale sharks. The boat doesn’t bother the sharks because they have no ears and poor eyesight. We’d know they’d spotted one when the captain turned the boat and pushed forward full throttle as tourists stumbled across the deck. Then the staff would break into an organized hustle. A guide briefly instructed the first group, and they entered the water off the ship’s stern. Then it was our turn. The guides told us to kick our way to the animal’s side once it came into view. That sounded easy enough. But we found that before you can do that, something happens that induces enough anxiety to make you forget what you’d been told minutes before. The only boat on the horizon putters away, leaving you in the middle of an ocean that’s thousands of feet deep and teeming with carnivorous life that’s more proficient in the water than, say, a pasty adolescent in flippers. Besides trying to stay in the middle of the group, you keep looking underwater until you calm down a bit and remember what the guides told you to do. Then you start looking for the fish the size of a subway car. Following the guide’s orders, we all remembered to move to the shark’s flanks, giving it 10 feet of berth on each side. Then, we tried to keep up. Far better equipped than we are, the whale shark oscillates its tailfin slowly and glides through the water fast enough to make us kick furiously to keep up. For a photograph to be easily catalogued, it and all others must be taken from the same angle; the shots are useless unless they’re taken at a right angle of the shark, to let the two-dimensional program map the three-dimensional photo. I steadied the waterproof camera and swam with all my strength to get the correct angle for a photograph. After the whale shark got tired of its mammalian entourage, it dove out of sight. Then the boat reappeared March/April 2008 and picked us out of the ocean. We climbed the ladder onto the deck and recuperated, leaving the photo assessment until we got back to the base in Exmouth. Swimming for Dollars Cataloging whale shark spots might not have the activist flair of ramming a whaling boat or chaining oneself to a redwood, but it’s hopefully more conducive to preserving a species. With data like this, scientists can work to change policies that interfere with natural processes, like a whale shark’s migration. There isn’t an obvious enemy in this effort. Taiwanese and Malaysian fishermen aren’t catching whale sharks out of sadism or for sport. They poach because it pays their living expenses. This is why Brad Norman’s idea is working and could be applied widely. Altering industry so that it sustains its employees and the environment helped keep whale sharks alive. It might work for other problems and other species. I wish I could say I chose to do this for that calculated reason, but I chose it for the same reason Earthwatch is thriving: getting to swim alongside a fantastic beast and helping to save it is worth a high price of admission. The Whale Sharks of the Ningaloo Reef program is an example of a business that functions symbiotically with nature—and still lets Dr. Norman pay his bills. i Alex George is a junior at Skidmore College, where he is majoring in English. He hopes to return to Australia for the surfing and animals. His first article for Imagine, about his work with Habitat for Humanity, appeared in 2005. Back at the research station, Alex analyzes plankton, the primary component of the whale shark diet. imagine 21

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

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