It's International Whale Shark Day and at last, we are running Aqua-Firma Whale Shark Research expeditions once again, raising money for the Marine Megafauna Foundation and local partners in Mexico,  Galapagos and Madagascar. 

Here are images from Mexico and Galapagos where you can join our expert hosts in June and July 2023:

Whale Shark feeding at the surface around 25 miles of the coast of Mexico (Photo by our research host Dr Clare Prebble)

12 metre Female Whale Shark in the Galapagos
(Photo: Dr Simon Pierce on our Aug'22 Shark Research Insights & Photography liveaboard)

... and Madagascar where we still have a couple of spaces available on our Whale Shark Research - Islands, Marine Life & Lemurs trip in October 2022. 

In the Galapagos, we invariably find large female whale sharks, such as these measuring around 12 metres. It seems incredible that this year is the first time in eight years that the Galapagos research team has come across a male whale shark. 

In contrast, males constitute around 85% of sharks seen in Eastern Mexico. It is a similar picture in Madagascar where we will be during peak whale shark season this October; back after a three-year break caused by COVID. It will be exciting to compare spot pattern IDs with our last census in 2019.

Hosting our Ocean Giant Expeditions is a familiar team of some of the world's leading Whale Shark Researchers, Marine Biologists, Filmers & Photographers; namely Dr Simon Pierce, Dr Chris Rohner, Dr Clare Prebble, Ralph Pannell, Charlotte Caffrey & Stella Diamant. Whilst joining these trips provides you with insights into the very latest findings in whale shark biology, it also helps AQUA-FIRMA to fund the continued research and conservation of whale sharks and other marine megafauna. We were the largest funder of the Marine Megafauna Foundation Whale Shark Programme in 2019. Now that the worst of COVID-19 has passed, we are keen to get the funding we provide back to 2019 levels and beyond.