On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 David Strike <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Michael Doelle's probably about to leave for his trip to Sipadan
>Island before catching up with us all in Singapore/Bali, but for wot
>it's worth a mate that's just returned from the island said that it
>was awful!!! :-))

Will Terry be attending the SPUMS conference being held in Noumea this May?

>The bloody turtles kept getting between him and the perfect shot of
>a whaleshark cruising around the island!  (The bastards!  Boil them
>down into soup, says, I!)  :-)))

I did not know they got whalesharks over there. Hmmm, do you mind asking
Terry if it was a male or female .. and guesstimate of size.

The reason I ask is that the Western Australian branch of AIMS is part of
the way through their whaleshark migration study and it has become
apparant that ONLY juvenile male whalesharks turn up on an annual basis
off the Ningaloo Reef.  Some of those that have been tagged have been
sighted at Christmas Island during the Xmas - New Years period.

In the beginning of this study the whalesharks that were fitted with
cameras were pretty cunning.  I viewed some video footage of one of them
immediately heading down to the seafloor and turning over to rub the
camera loose.  They lost a couple of very expensive cameras that way until
they thought up a better method of securing them.
Viv