Oceanographic Center Student Tags Whale Sharks

Whale shark feeding

Oceanographic Center graduate student Matthew Potenski completed five months of field research in Tanzania, on the east coast of Africa.  During his time there he observed and tagged whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) in the waters surrounding Mafia Island, Tanzania. 

Potenski works on a volunteer basis as a shark biologist for the New Jersey-based non-profit organization, the Shark Research Institute (SRI - www.sharks.org).  Potenski split time between living onboard the M/V Kairos, a French-owned 300 ton live aboard dive vessel, and on Mafia Island itself, at a compound owned by the Tanzanian office of the World Wildlife Fund. WWF also provided funding for equipment, especially the pop-up archival (PAT) satellite tags to be deployed in the study.

The goals of the study of whale sharks in Tanzanian waters is to characterize the population, determine migratory pathways, and add habitat use information to our overall understanding of whale sharks.

Matthew Potenski used spear gun to tag whale sharks.