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  1. Whale sharks collect in predictable seasonal aggregations across the tropics. South Ari Atoll in the Maldives is one of a few aggregation sites where whale sharks can be encountered year-round. Here, areas with high levels of tourism-related boating traffic overlap with the whale shark hotspot, increasing the probability of anthropogenic injury. Whale sharks have been reported to remain faithful to this aggregation site following injury, despite the costs of injury and the risk of re-injury. However, the impacts of injury on site fidelity and residency behaviour are not fully understood.
  2. Encounter data on individual sharks from the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme database (2006–2018) were analysed to assess the relationship between injury and site fidelity in whale sharks. There was no difference in geographic site use, with injured and non-injured individuals being encountered in the same areas. However, there were differences in residency timings: injured resident whale sharks (individuals repeatedly encountered over 6 months or longer) spent significantly more time at the atoll and less time absent, and were seen more consistently than non-injured residents. Increased residency duration, return rate and number of residency periods correlated with increasing injury number.
  3. These differences in behaviour imply a cost to injury, with whale sharks potentially remaining at this site to recover. With boat traffic being concentrated at the aggregation site, injured sharks may be more vulnerable to further injury. Alternatively, these individuals may remain at the atoll despite injury because the benefits gained from this area outweigh the potential costs, with more resident individuals facing greater exposure to anthropogenic threats. These findings highlight the importance of this location and emphasize the need for improved management of anthropogenic activities, particularly boating traffic, at aggregation hotspots to reduce injury rates and any subsequent impacts on behaviour and fitness.
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  • 1. The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a popular focal species within the global marine tourism industry. Although this has contributed to increased protection being granted to the species in several countries, tourism itself can be detrimental to the sharks in the absence of appropriate management. Potential impacts can be mitigated, at least in the short term, by adherence to well‐designed interaction guidelines.
  • 2. A burgeoning marine tourism industry based on swimming with whale sharks has developed at Tofo Beach in Mozambique. However, no formal management is currently in place at this site.
  • 3. The behaviour of whale sharks during interactions with boats and swimmers were recorded during 137 commercial snorkelling trips run from Tofo Beach over a 20 month period. Whale sharks were encountered on 87% of trips, which operated year‐round.
  • 4. Boat proximity and shark size were significant predictors of avoidance behaviour. No avoidance responses were recorded at >20 m boat distance.
  • 5. The mean in‐water interaction time between sharks and swimmers was 8 min 48 s overall. There was a significant decrease in interaction times during encounters where sharks expressed avoidance behaviours, and also in cases where sharks had expressed boat avoidance behaviour before swimmers entered the water.
  • 6. It is suggested that mean encounter times can be extended through adherence to a basic Code of Conduct for operators and swimmers that enforces minimum distances between the sharks, boats and swimmers. Using encounter time as a measure of the ‘success’ of interactions holds promise, as longer encounters appear to be indicative of lower impacts on sharks while also providing higher customer satisfaction for swimmers. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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  1. In the south‐eastern Pacific Ocean, few studies of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) exist. In Peru, the northern coast has been identified as the area with the highest presence of whale sharks, yet their ecology in this area is poorly defined.
  2. This study predicts the spatial distribution of whale sharks off coastal northern Peru (03°00′S–04°30′S) during La Niña and El Niño seasonal conditions, utilizing maximum entropy modelling. Between 2009 and 2018 (except for 2011), 347 whale sharks were geo‐referenced in northern Peru with greatest data recordings in the austral summer and spring during La Niña events.
  3. Depth was the most important predictive variable for spatial distribution of whale sharks, followed by chlorophyll‐a. Sharks were predicted in shallower coastal waters in which chlorophyll‐a values are higher.
  4. Habitat suitability was higher in the northern coastal part of the study area. Spring presents the most suitable environmental conditions for whale sharks, both during La Niña and El Niño conditions. The probability of whale shark presence in the north of Peru increases at higher chlorophyll‐a and sea surface temperature values. Therefore, whale sharks appear to aggregate seasonally in northern Peru, potentially exploiting rich foraging grounds.
  5. In these areas of high suitability, whale sharks are susceptible to fisheries, bycatch, ship collisions, unmanaged tourism, and pollution; thus, management actions should focus in these areas.
  6. This study represents a first step to understand the distribution and habitat suitability of whale shark in Peruvian waters. Further studies should identify suitable habitat for whale sharks in offshore areas. Also, these should focus on the connectivity of these aggregations with other localities in the south‐eastern Pacific in order to contribute to regional strategies for the conservation of this iconic species in this particular region.
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1. Whale shark, the world's largest fish, is believed to be particularly vulnerable owing to its biological characteristics (slow growth, late maturation, great longevity) and is listed as Vulnerable by IUCN and included in Appendix II of CITES. 2. Whale sharks are occasionally encircled in tropical tuna purse‐seine nets, throughout this global fishery. Although apparent immediate survival rates following encirclement and release have recently been assessed through scientific onboard observer programmes, a more rigorous methodology is still required for studying post‐released survival. 3. This work provides a method for applying pop‐up satellite tags and reports an enhanced release procedure for whale sharks. The first assessment of survival after release from purse‐seine nets involved six whale sharks tagged between May and September 2014 in the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean. Five tags transmitted data: three popped up as programmed (after 30 days), while two surfaced prematurely (one after 21 and the other after 71 days (programmed to pop off after 30 and 90 days, respectively)) but showed no sign of unusual behaviour. 4. Overall, whale sharks survived at least 21 days (one at least 71 days) after release from purse‐seine nets. These observations based on five large individuals (total length > 8 m), suggest that whale sharks have a good chance of survival when released with the proposed method. 5. Additional tagging in this and other oceans, especially of juveniles which may be more sensitive to encirclement and release operations, is essential to further assess whale shark post‐release survival rates in tuna purse‐seine fisheries. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

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  1. An aggregation of sandbar sharks Carcharhinus plumbeus occurs every summer around the remote uninhabited islet of Lampione (Pelagie Islands Marine Protected Area, south-western Mediterranean Sea), attracting an increasing number of tourists for a shark watching experience.
  2. Despite the ecological and socio-economic importance of this rare occurrence in Mediterranean waters, there is a lack of scientific data and lack of information as to the potential impact of tourist activities on the presence and behaviour of this shark species.
  3. Using baited underwater videos, this study provides the first assessment of this shark aggregation, as well as a preliminary evaluation of the potential effects that boating and diving activities may have on sandbar sharks during two different periods within the tourism season (July and September 2019).
  4. Overall, 241 sandbar shark sightings (with up to five individuals together) were recorded in July, whereas there were only six sightings in September. The average MaxN was 1.18 hr−1 (±0.21 hr−1 SE) and 0.22 hr−1 (±0.10 hr−1 SE) individuals in July and September respectively. Higher frequentation levels of divers and boats significantly reduced the number of shark sightings at the aggregation site.
  5. This study emphasizes the need for further investigations on Mediterranean shark aggregations and the implementation of specific conservation measures, such as an increase of protection level in Lampione and better enforcement, aside from strategies that promote sustainable tourism, including restrictions on the number of boats and divers’ visits per day. In the meantime, a precautionary approach aimed at regulating the interactions between tourists and sharks should be implemented through the application of a self-regulatory code of conduct for divers when sharks aggregate around the island.
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  1. Knowledge about spatial and temporal variability in the distribution and abundance of predators is necessary to adapt measures to mitigate human–wildlife interactions.
  2. Acoustic telemetry and network analyses were used to investigate the spatial ecology of bull sharks, the species responsible for most shark bites in Reunion Island, one of the world's shark bite hotspots.
  3. The west coast of the island was not used uniformly by every individual, with size predicting the movements of sharks along the coast.
  4. Node-based metrics – closeness, node strength, and cumulated continuous residency times – derived from up to 181 monthly movement networks from 20 individuals, revealed that smaller sharks (<250 cm total length) primarily used the south-west coast while larger individuals spent most of their time in the northern region with regular visits to multiple areas along the coast.
  5. This study provides essential knowledge on bull shark behaviour and central areas used at different periods of the year, which correlates well with the dynamics of observed shark bites. Our approach provides a non-invasive alternative to help predicting and anticipating human–shark conflicts and avoid shark culling programmes detrimental to the conservation of large predators such as sharks.
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  1. Shark-based tourism continues to be a rapidly growing industry, and thus understanding the impacts of such activities is essential to mitigate the potential negative effects on the target species. The consequences of provisioning on whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are not fully understood, although changes to the local environment, ecology, behaviour, and site visitation patterns have been highlighted. Here, the scarring patterns of whale sharks were investigated at a provisioning site in Oslob, Cebu, Philippines, as an indicator of the physical impacts of tourism activities on individual sharks. Photographic identification was used to attribute scars to individual animals (n = 152) between March 31, 2012 and January 31, 2015.
  2. Scars were categorized by type and body location, and were compared with non-provisioned aggregations in Australia, Mozambique, and Seychelles. Oslob whale sharks were more scarred than other studied populations, with 94.7% (n = 144) having at least one scar, and with 90.8% (n = 138) having more than one scar. Scarring incidence was found to be significantly higher in sharks that regularly visited the provisioning site, and analysis of scarring over time in highly resident sharks showed that all individuals gained scars through periods of consistent re-sightings. A significantly higher incidence of minor scar types was found, most commonly on the dorsal side of the animal, probably resulting from sustained proximity to boats and ropes throughout the provisioning activities. The consequences of interactions with propeller boats were observed, despite a ban on their use in the provisioning site, highlighting the risk to the species beyond the study site.
  3. We recommend the strict enforcement of a minimum distance between boats and sharks, a zero-contact policy during interactions, the expansion of the provisioning site, and the implementation of a no-boat-access zone around the perimeter of the provisioning site to mitigate potential collisions.
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  1. The Mediterranean Sea represents an area of elevated risk of extinction for sharks, where data deficiency is a pervasive problem.
  2. To compensate for such a paucity of information, this study investigated the use of social media content as a complementary approach to evaluate the distribution and habitat use of the Critically Endangered blue shark Prionace glauca in coastal waters, as well as public perceptions of the sharks.
  3. Through social media data mining a total of 146 records, comprising 158 individual blue sharks approaching Italian coastal waters, have been recorded from 2011 to 2020.
  4. This study revealed that, over the past decade, blue sharks regularly visited Italian coastal habitats for extended periods of time. Differences in the temporal distribution of blue sharks by sex and size appear to be linked to reproductive activity. The higher number of adult females approaching the shore in spring and the increase in young-of-the-year (YOY) sightings in the following months possibly indicate parturition in coastal waters. Spatial analyses also showed that certain Italian coastal areas, such as those in Calabria and Puglia, were preferred coastal habitats for this species.
  5. Results also indicate that social media platforms can be considered an ever-growing source of data on wildlife, which can shed light on the occurrence and distribution of endangered shark species in poorly known habitats. Furthermore, social media platforms should be used for awareness campaigns to educate the public, as this study showed that negative reactions to shark encounters remain widespread.
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  • 1. The decline of large‐bodied predatory species in the oceans is a concern both from a sustainability perspective and because such species can have important ecological roles. Sharks are particularly vulnerable to fishing as their life histories are characterized by late age at maturity, large body size, and low fecundity.
  • 2. Substantial shark population declines have been documented for a number of coastal and pelagic systems, with high population abundance limited to a few remote locations. The relative abundance and composition of reef shark populations are assessed from 1975 to 2006 at a remote, largely uninhabited, group of atolls in the central Indian Ocean; the Chagos Archipelago.
  • 3. Number of sharks observed per scientific dive declined from a mean of 4.2 in the 1970s to 0.4 in 2006, representing a decline of over 90%. Silvertip sharks displayed an increase in abundance from 1996, whereas blacktip and whitetip reef sharks were rarely encountered in 2006.
  • 4. Poaching in the archipelago, is the most likely cause of these declines, highlighted by a number of illegal vessels containing large numbers of sharks arrested since 1996. The data highlight that shark populations, even in remote, otherwise pristine, marine areas, are vulnerable to distant fishing fleets, and a range of strategies will need to be used in concert for their conservation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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