Whale sharks are found in tropical oceans all over the world. In St Helena’s Island’s Marine Protected Area, (nearly the size of France), the Whale sharks – locally known as Bone sharks, are the only known population where an almost equal number of both mature male and female sharks come to feed and recuperate.

As part of the St Helena National Trust’s annual bone shark research, the Marine Team documents and observes behavioural encounters of individual bone sharks throughout the season. The data collected over time, together with historical island data, creates a clearer picture of how many sharks migrate to the island every year, when and where they visit, and just maybe… to discover if they come here to breed.

Over the years, it has increasingly became evident that one of the island’s premium tourism attractions is the Bone Shark, and Trust Marine Team has been progressing a number of initiatives which are focused on promoting the Island as the No.1 destination for both research and visitor experience in relation to these “gentle giants”.

“With St Helena’s Fibre Optic Cable Project advancing, new technology being introduced and the majority of the population owning a mobile phone, our island has started a new digital age and because of this, we are so proud to be able to launch our brand new, ‘St Helena Whale shark ID App’” says Marine Research Coordinator, Kenickie Andrews.

In collaboration with app designers, CRITTER, (funded by Blue Marine Foundation and Enterprise St Helena) the Trust Marine Team has been working this mobile app for over a year. Found both on Apple App store and Google Play store, the new, free app allows anyone to submit their bone shark sightings and encounters to the Trust, contributing to an important effort to further understand these secretive and endangered marine species.

“Our app enables not just the Marine Team, but, also our local citizen scientists, enthusiasts, visiting tourist and members of the public to contribute to local bone shark encounter data, track individual sightings, and learn more about our Islands unique marine megafauna in the palm of their hand”, continues Kenickie.

“For environmental projects such as this, high quality on going field research is an incredibly important tool and the data collected, helps local researchers such as our team to maintain an understanding of the current demographics of our bone sharks, who and where have the sharks been and how long are they here for. When we can understand why these sharks come to the Island, their behaviours and what they do here, we can do more to better protect them and help identify management objectives to ensure that the world biggest fish remains safe”.

The app allows the user to also keep up with all recent shark encounters found, learn more about the individuals that the user has submitted via their own user portal and or others that have been found, displays of an island map to discover the teams research and sighting hotspots of the season, document behaviour observers and injuries and using their uploaded ID photo of the sharks, help to identify any sharks, possibly new to science or those that have returned back to the Island.

Through this input, the Marine team can review and monitor all encounter data submitted via the main app portal to help inform the research conducted and directly support the well-being of our visiting shark population.

For more information about the work of St Helena National Trust visit their website.