Evidence of residential area of whale sharks in Saleh Bay, West Nusa Tenggara

Abstract

Saleh Bay is one of the locations where whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) occurrence observed in Indonesia and can be found all year round. Whale sharks broadly distributed throughout tropical and sub-tropical waters of the world’s oceans. Immature male is less than 7 m long, while female is less than 10 m, mostly tend to coastal habitat related. Result of research by Conservation International presented at International Whale Shark Conference in Australia in 2019, Whale Sharks in Saleh Bay had home movement patterns. This study aims to prove that Saleh Bay is the residential area of the whale shark. This study was conducted from November 2019 to January 2020. The Photo-ID data obtained were compared with CI’s Saleh Bay Whale Shark ID Catalog data which last update on April 2020. Surface temperature was measured directly in the range of 29-320C, data for chlorophyll-a were taken from marine.copernicus.eu and bathymetry from cmap.ihms.us then interpolated using QGIS 3.10 software. From this study period, 24 Photo-IDs were obtained from 39 whale sharks, which identified as 23 males, 1 female, and 6 were new individuals from June 2019 to April 2020. The size of the whale sharks recorded in this study ranged from 2,5 to 7 m with 4,86 m in average, and considered as juveniles.