ECOCEAN
As usual, beautiful day over Utila. A whale shark was spotted during our surface interval but quickly disappeared in the depth. Not even worth a picture. Note, that I have learned recently about ECOCEAN, a not for profit organization that collects information and pictures of whale shark encounter in order to learn more about their migration patterns. In order to identify whale sharks, they use an algorithm adapted from the Hubble Space Telescope (thanks to a member of the team who is a NASA astrophysicist). They perform numerical pattern matching of their natural surface ‘spot’ colourations in a similar way to what astronomers use to map the stars in the night sky. Wicked. People interested in the details can check the paper ‘An astronomical pattern-matching algorithm for computer-aided identification of whale sharks Rhincodon typus (PDF) published in the Journal of Applied Ecology
As strange as it may sounds, little is known about these massive creatures at this time. Projects like this help collect information and improve awareness.
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Hi Stephane,
I just saw your posting and I think its great that you are spreading the word. I am from ECOCEAN and we are currently at the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia with Brad Norman carrying out our photo-ID work during the whale shark season from April to June. It is great to see people are interested in the online library and are helping with whale shark conservation. How did you find out about us? Happy thoughts, Kathy Zischka
Comment by Kathy Zischka — May 27, 2006 @ 9:35 am