Photo-ID and telemetry highlight a global whale shark hotspot in Palawan, Philippines.

ABSTRACT: The Philippines is home to the second largest known population of whale sharks in the world. The species is listed as endangered due to continued population declines in the Indo-Pacific. Knowledge about the connectivity within Southeast Asia remains poor, and thus international management is difficult. Here, we employed pop-up archival tags, data mining and dedicated effort to understand an aggregation of whale sharks at Honda Bay, Palawan, Philippines, and its role in the species' conservation. Between Apr and Oct 2018, we conducted 159 surveys identifying 117 individual whale sharks through their unique spot patterns (96.5% male, mean 4.5 m). A further 66 individual whale sharks were identified from local operators, and data mined on social media platforms. The satellite telemetry data s

SUBMITTER: Araujo G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6868279 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature