Click on the link below for the 2009 MBSW report. This gives a summary of the results from all your sightings in 2009 as well as a bit about some of the other work MBSW has been up to.

Download 2009 report

2010 is hoping to be another successful year for MBSW. As well as collecting the public sightings, we are planning to continue boat surveys for photo identification and other scientific research. 

The Manx Wildlife Trust is also starting a land based project during the summer of 2010, carrying out dedicated watches at specific sights. These will record not only basking sharks, but whales, dolphins, porpoises and seabirds as well. Hopefully this will give us a better indication of where and when the best places to watch wildlife really are. If you would like to help with this project and hopefully see a lot of wonderful marine wildlife then just get in touch with Eleanor at eleanor@manxwt.org.uk for more details - the more eyes we have the better!

Happy Shark Watching for 2010!

A very sad and sorry tale appeared in the Independent the other day. A basking shark that was caught as by-catch in Ireland was up for sale. The news article (highlighted below) prompted rapid action by the Sea Fisheries Protection Agency and the Shark Trust. This has produced an excellent result: we have just received word from Ali Hood, director of conservation at the Shark Trust, that the sale was prevented and appropriate action to educate both the skipper and the seller is underway. DNA samples are to be taken for scientific research.  http://www.independent.ie/national-news/catch-of-the-day-500kg-monster-1914138.html.

We are delighted to report that Tony the 8m long male basking shark has dropped his tag after wearing it for 76 days. The tag is currently drifting in the middle of the Irish Sea, transmitting all its stored data to us via the Argos satellite system.

Tony the basking shark was named after our Chief Minister Tony Brown as he (the basking shark not the Chief Minister) was tagged off the isle of Man on Tynwald Day.

We look forward to looking at the complete story of where Tony has been during those 76 days, what his depth search profile was and what the water temperature was. The more we know about these enigmatic animals the more we can do to protect them. The Manx government's DAFF (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) is very interested in local movements of basking sharks. They use tagging information and information from the Manx Basking Shark Watch public sighting scheme to help them with wildlife management decisions.

Until a few years ago it was thought that basking sharks sank to the bottom in the winter, shed their gill rakers and hibernated. As a result of satellite tagging work we now know that this is completely wrong. They move offshore and continue to feed. In 2007 one of our tagged Manx Basking Sharks, Tracy the Tower Insurance shark, went right across the Atlantic Ocean nearly to Novia Scotia in only 81 days so it is fascinating to see that both the Amie (another Tower Insurance sponsored shark) and Tony, both tagged in 2009, have stayed very close to the Isle of Man. The 4 sharks successfully tagged by us in 2008 also stayed within the Irish Sea. it would appear that it is only the odd, sexually mature individual who embarks upon cross-ocean journeys. We certainly need to keep tagging in combination with other research work to discover the wider picture of these wonderful beasties annual and long-term behaviours and movements.

On an economical note we are delighted that both the tags used on Amie and Tony were recycled.  We have, therefore, managed to fund both these tags from the generous funding given to us by Tower Insurance this year. Recycled tags are much cheaper than buying new ones! We had managed to recover both these tags. Tony's tag was the one used by Dr Mauvis Gore and I in 2007. It was sponsored by Dennis Drummond of Canada. It was retrieved on a Scottish shore, Ardrossan. We got a lot of interesting material from it then, when it was on a basking shark called Dennis and so it is very rewarding to get yet more data from it when it was on Tony. Who knows, we might get it back again if it finally drifts to shore! Amie's tag was one which had a malfunction upon deployment in 2008. Graham and I were very lucky and after an intensive search we recovered it from a beach near Rue Point on the North of the isle of Man. It's pin had broken. Wildlife Computers mended it and we were able to use it successfully in 2009. 

Anyway, we look forward to seeing the full data sets from Amie and Tony's tags. 

Florian Guthknecht is a film director. He and his team came to the Isle of Man at the beginning of June 2009 to film the basking sharks for “Bayerisches Fernsehen”, a non-commercial public-service television channel in Germany. Its function is of an educational nature. They are making a full -length documentary about the Isle of Man. This will be out sometime this winter. In the meantime they showed a small piece on German TV last week. This links to a clip-

Link to this URL to get the latest Marine Protected Area news.

 http://depts.washington.edu/mpanews/ 

Well, it's that time of year again. We need YOUR help to find a satellite tag full of very important information about a basking sharks movements.

Amie the Tower insurance shark, a 7m long female basking shark we tagged with a £3,500 satellite tag in July, has shed her tag after wearing it for 53 days. The tag is approaching Kicoole Beach in County Wicklow, Ireland. The map below shows its anticipated landing point, about 2km south of Greystones. Maybe, if you are going for a walk that way you would be kind enough to look out for it. The reward for returning it to us is £200.

We already have the essential details of where she has been, how deep she dived and what the water temperature was. This was transmitted to a satellite and then to us. However, if we get the tag back we can examine the full data set down to the minute. This would be excellent. If the tag is not damaged we might also be able to re-use the tag in 2010. This saves money and recycling always makes sense!

Here is a picture of what the tag looks like. If you find it please contact us via this website.

Manx Basking Shark Watch and APECS (Association Pour l'Etude et la Conservation des Sélaciens) have worked together this summer, tagging 8 sharks in Manx waters. The BBC did this article about it yesterday.  

This will not work as a direct link, you may have to copy and paste it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8257036.stm

Paste this url into internet to be able to hear the excellent radio 4 from last week's program about the potential Marine Nature Reserve on the Isle of Man. It's a very well balanced program, with interviews from all the relevant people. Apparently the bit with Malcolm Kelly (Foillan Beg skipper from Peel) was chosen as the 'Pick of the week' on sunday.

Here is a map of the basking shark sighting reports from July. There were 260 reports in July.

Lottie Ray of Isle of Man newspapers has written this nice article summing up this years basking shark work. Thankyou Lottie!

 You have to copy this url and paste it into your computer.  Unfortunately it will not work automatically from this site.

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Isle-of-Man-witnesses-increase.5615463.jp 

http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=news&id=3032

Malcolm Lambert and Hugh Leodisson have very kindly given us access to the photographs they took at the conference. 

There may be a problem so Malcolm has given this advice: Some people who have already been into www.phlog.im/mbsw/aug2 may only see the old cache of just 37 photos relating to the community celebration. If that is the case viewers should press the Control button and F5 at the same time and it will update the webpage so that all of the evening photos can also be seen.  

Attendees of the conference are welcome to download any of these images for appropriate personal use. However, copyright of these images will remain with the photographer and none of the images are to be published or used for commercial gain without the prior permission of the photographer.

Contact: as appropriate, either: Malcolm Lambert - email: lamberts@infoware.co.uk or Hugh Leoidsson - email: hugh@iom.com

Malcolm Lambert very kindly took many photographs during the conference. He will be posting them online shortly so you will be able to have copies.

Mal Kelly, skipper of Foillan Beg, took this great photo of our research boat HAPPY JACK. Graham is on the front, pointing towards the shark with his pole camera. Great shot, thankyou. It's so good that I thought it was taken by Nick and Clarita the National Geographic photographers who were with him. The artistic skill must have rubbed off!

A full report will appear in due course. The conference was a great success.  I will write more about it over the coming weeks. Here I briefly discuss the first two of the four aims of the conference.

The conference was hosted by The Manx Governments DAFF, the Manx Wildlife Trust's Manx Basking Shark Watch and the Save Our Seas Foundation.

One of the main aims of the conference was to promote international collaboration to establish the status of basking sharks globally. The conference certainly achieved this objective as it was attended by over 100 participants including scientists and conservationist from all over the world, America, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the Seychelles. The cross fertilisation of ideas and scope for collaborative research was remarkable.

This conference was something that needed to happen. For many years basking shark researchers have worked in their own countries and there has been some but not much collaboration between countries.

Recent tagging work from the Isle of Man and America has shown that basking sharks, a species listed as vulnerable on the IUCN red list, are world wide travellers and need to be protected globally. This conference “Basking Sharks: A Global perspective, was called in response to this realisation. 

This tagging work provoked us into action. In 2007, a basking shark tagged off the Isle of Man, 'Tracy' the Tower Insurance shark, travelled across the Atlantic (Gore et al 2009). Then, earlier this year Dr Greg Skomal published a paper about basking sharks traveling down the eastern US coast. Some of his tagged basking sharks over - wintered in the Caribbean and some travelled south to Brazil. These tagging results mean that we have to consider the endangered basking shark to be a global traveller. This is not just exciting, it has huge implications for scientific and conservation efforts. As basking sharks spend large period of time underwater it has been very difficult to acertain a global population estimate for them but genetics work estimates that the population of breeding females world-wide may be as small as 6,000-60,000. This is very worrying as they are targeted by the shark-finning industry. As China becomes more affluent the market for shark fins becomes greater. All sharks are in danger of extinction from this horrible fishery that often sees the sharks having their fins cut off whilst they are still alive and the rest of this magnificent animal's butchered body is tipped back into the sea (still alive), to die a slow and horrid death.

The second aim of the conference was to develop research to assess the extent of basking shark movement between regions. There was much talk of large-scale international collaboration between different research groups, synchronising deployment of large numbers of satellite tags with fin ID and genetic sampling. If  a fraction of the discussed potential collaborations come to fruition the conference will have been a great success. One geneticist said that genetic work on basking sharks had made a five-year quantum leap over one lunch break! The collaborations between British, American and Manx research groups may bring the development of sex markers for sharks, and genetic identification of individual basking sharks could revolutionise the tracking of individuals worldwide.

The conference was hosted by The Manx Governments DAFF, the Manx Wildlife Trust's Manx Basking Shark Watch and the Save Our Seas Foundation.

The Chief minister Tony Brown (fourth from right) opened the conference:

Photo by Malcolm Lambert.

A full report will appear in due course. The conference was a great success.  I will write more about it over the coming weeks. Here I briefly discuss the first two of the four aims of the conference. 

One of the main aims of the conference was to promote international collaboration to establish the status of basking sharks globally. The conference certainly achieved this objective as it was attended by over 100 participants including scientists and conservationist from all over the world, America, Canada, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the Seychelles. The cross fertilisation of ideas and scope for collaborative research was remarkable.

This conference was something that needed to happen. For many years basking shark researchers have worked in their own countries and there has been some but not much collaboration between countries.

Recent tagging work from the Isle of Man and America has shown that basking sharks, a species listed as vulnerable on the IUCN red list, are world wide travellers and need to be protected globally. This conference “Basking Sharks: A Global perspective, was called in response to this realisation. 

This tagging work provoked us into action. In 2007, a basking shark tagged off the Isle of Man, 'Tracy' the Tower Insurance shark, travelled across the Atlantic (Gore et al 2009). Then, earlier this year Dr Greg Skomal published a paper about basking sharks traveling down the eastern US coast. Some of his tagged basking sharks over - wintered in the Caribbean and some travelled south to Brazil. These tagging results mean that we have to consider the endangered basking shark to be a global traveller. This is not just exciting, it has huge implications for scientific and conservation efforts. As basking sharks spend large period of time underwater it has been very difficult to acertain a global population estimate for them but genetics work estimates that the population of breeding females world-wide may be as small as 6,000-60,000. This is very worrying as they are targeted by the shark-finning industry. As China becomes more affluent the market for shark fins becomes greater. All sharks are in danger of extinction from this horrible fishery that often sees the sharks having their fins cut off whilst they are still alive and the rest of this magnificent animal's butchered body is tipped back into the sea (still alive), to die a slow and horrid death.

The second aim of the conference was to develop research to assess the extent of basking shark movement between regions. There was much talk of large-scale international collaboration between different research groups, synchronising deployment of large numbers of satellite tags with fin ID and genetic sampling. If  a fraction of the discussed potential collaborations come to fruition the conference will have been a great success. One geneticist said that genetic work on basking sharks had made a five-year quantum leap over one lunch break! The collaborations between British, American and Manx research groups may bring the development of sex markers for sharks, and genetic identification of individual basking sharks could revolutionise the tracking of individuals worldwide.

The basking shark conference starts with a bang this friday with Basking Shark Summer School at the Erin Arts Cenrtre in Port Erin. You can see life-sized models of basking sharks, learn about them, watch films, make your own basking sharks and win prizes. We are expecting about 120 scientists and interested public to visit the conference. We have visiting shark experts from all over the world. Don't miss it! As you will see many of the event are open to the public, some are free others offer a discounted rate for local persons. See the front page of the website for more details.

Download The Conference Program here.

The picture shows the wonderful advertising hoarding painted by artist Krista Magee. 

We tag these sharks to find out exactly what their movements are both in Manx waters and after they leave us. The tags do not hurt the basking sharks and give us and governments invaluable information that, hopefully, will enable governments to better plan for the protection of these wonderful animals.

The Manx Basking Shark Watch and APECS satellite tags are now all deployed on 8 basking sharks, 2 females and 6 males as per map below. APECS has already deployed 2 tags on females in French waters. The MBSW tags will come off the sharks in 210 days, the APECS ones in 245 days (or before if the sharks start scratching the itch)!

After analysis of fin photographs the French APECS team and MBSW was completed today we decided that the basking shark with the damaged fin seen off Peel on the 6th is the same animal that was seen off Glen Maye in 2005. We nick-named him 'M' then. We now know more details, he is a 5.5m -6m long male. A success for fin ID.

What a busy week! Here is a map of where we deployed three satellite tags on basking sharks in the last few days. Many, many thanks to Tower Insurance and the Manx Government's departments of DAFF and DTL for their continuing sponsorship, we could not do it without your assistance.

STANLEY, a 7.5 -8m long male basking shark, is named in honour of Stanley Karran, a venerable Cregneish resident aged 98 who died this week. His tag has a red top and a blue line.

TONY, a 7.5 - 8m male basking shark is named for the chief Minister as he was tagged on Tynwald Day. His tag has a red top and a red line.

FRED, a 7m long male with a distinctive multi-notched fin, is named for a member of the French APECS team. He is wearing their tag, a grey one. 

WHAT a day! The French team from APECS ( l'Association Pour l'Etude et la Conservation des Saleciens ) and Manx Basking Shark Watch sexed 23 sharks and tagged two large male sharks today. We have called the large 7.5-8m male tagged with the MBSW tag TONY. The 7m male tagged with the APECS tag has been named FRED, after one of their team.

Tony was tagged with a Manx Basking Shark Watch tag and Fred was tagged with a French APECS tag.

The full report and some photographs will be online shortly. 

Peel Castle at 18.30 was a truly magical place, with maybe 50 people enjoying the sharks, close inshore under the breakwater.

The photograph shows the Manx Basking Shark Watch research boat 'Happy Jack' next to a previously injured male shark. We urge all water users to be very careful around basking sharks to avoid this sort of damage happening again. Martin Kubala, a tourist on the harbour wall kindly gave this photo to us.

IF YOU SEE A BASKING SHARK PLEASE RING US IMMMEDIATLY ON OUR MOBILE 07624 334208 AND LET US KNOW. 

Ok, this is getting ridiculous, the German film crew have been here for nearly two weeks and they have only seen 4 sharks in rough seas. They are here for another few days. I believe that the Department of Tourism and Leisure have given them a little funding to allow them to stay for another couple of days.

A team of scientists from France will join us from July 6th - 15th. Their organisation the Association Pour L'Etude et la Conservation des Selacians (APECS) studies sharks, including basking sharks.

They will be studying plankton in relation to the basking sharks and they will attach two MK10 satellite tags plus at least one radio-tracking tag. We really need people with boat handing skills (and maybe a boat) to help us track the basking shark while it has the radio tag on it. This may be no easy task! Please contact us via the website if you would like to help.

WELL! The German film crew arrived on the 8th and the sharks have melted away like snow in June! We have had 330 basking shark reports from May 15th to June 15th. The reports peaked in numbers on the 1st June (35 reports) and 2nd of June (22 reports). Since the film crew arrived they have not seen one! Well, that's not quite true. The director, Florian Guthknecht saw one in Douglas harbour (of all places)!

If you see a shark please report it to us on our mobile 07624 334203 and let us know immediately. The reputation of our Island as basking shark central is at stake!

"Don't worry: It's just a bunch of shark watchers and they'll be gone by tea-time"!

This map shows the distribution of all the sightings we received in May. As you can see, not only were there a great deal of sightings, but also they were spread a lot more around the island than in previous years. Usually sightings tend to be concentrated around the south west of the Island, but this year there have been several sightings in the north and a large number on the east coast. 

So wherever you are around our coastline, keep an eye out because there could be a shark anywhere! 

Both the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and the Department of Tourism and Leisure ( DTL) have both issued press releases about  basking sharks today. Download them here, and here.

This amazing photograph was taken the other day by Ian and Jane Young. It shows lots of sharks in a line. Are they feeding, courting or just socialising? That is what we at Manx Basking Shark Watch are trying to find out!

The Irish Basking Shark project have made a flying start to the 2009 season with the deployment of 50 visual tags. There is a picture of one of these tags on a shark attached. If you see one please report it to either sSimon Berrow on simon.berrow@shannondolphins.ie or Emmert Johnstone on emmett.johnston@nature.ie. Some of them are different colours, please note the colour and where the shark is.

Concentrating on the coastal waters of the Inishowen peninsula, Co. Donegal they found the tidal conditions around Malin Head particularly productive for shark sightings and tagging opportunities.

The project manager Dr Simon Berrow and researcher Emmett Johnston are working closely with local fishermen and carrying out dedicated vessel surveys to gain knowledge on the fine scale movements of the sharks. While out tagging the team also witnessed nine full breaches and some previously unreported behaviour by the sharks. The project, which is funded by the Irish Heritage Council, hopes to investigate basking shark seasonal movements and life cycle characteristics. 

This morning 2nd June the sea around the airport extension was alive with plankton. In a very short space of time (25minutes) we watched 4 Rissos dolphins, a basking shark and a grey seal all within a few hundred meters of all the building work that is going on. It appears that Balfour Beatty engineers are doing a good job of keeping the silt down! 

What an amazing day! The sea was full of plankton, especially on the east coast but there seem to have been sharks all around the coast today. The air was very warm, I believe it was up to 27 degrees C inland. The water surface temperature was up to 16.7 degrees C in hot little patches. There was a thin mist on the water.  We took fin photos with the still camera and underwater video, with the pole camera. We were able to sex all of the sharks today, this is much more difficult than it sounds! I will put some photos on later. Most of the sharks were mature but one of them was a very skittery 3m young-of-the year. This is unusual so early in the season.

Jackie Hall has prepared this Manx Basking Shark Watch code of conduct for boat users. It shows you where the hotspots are. Download it to print or read from here.

Several members of the public have reported incidents of basking sharks being disturbed by jetskis, snorkellers and boats in the last week.

Disturbing basking sharks as they feed or court, obstructing their exit from a bay or getting too close to them is against Manx law.

If you see a problem like this could you please report it to either Dr Fiona Gell or Laura Hanly at DAFF (01624 843109) or to the police. The police have special officers who are concerned with wildlife.

There are several problems here, yes, the basking sharks could be injured or driven away but it would be terrible if someone was injured or killed by one of these gentle, protected animals. They are far too big for people to upset. You do not want something the size of a bus thrashing you with its tail because you've annoyed it!  Bad news for the gentle basking sharks, bad news for the person involved.

The photograph, taken by Ian and Jane Young in 2005, shows a basking shark that has had the top of its fin sliced off by a boat propeller. 

The Manx Government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is now well into the process of finding out what the Manx public want for a Marine Nature Reserve. Meetings have been held with the public, fishermen and other interested bodies. There will be many more meetings before anything is decided. This website will keep you abreast of events and information about how this consultation process is going.

http://www.gov.im/daff/Wildlife/sites/marine.xml 

At the very start of the basking shark season, in mid-May, we always get some basking sharks spotted of the east coast, Langness and Port St Mary. This year has been exceptional for this. We have had several reports of sharks off Santon Head, Marine Drive in Douglas and even as far up as Laxey. I wonder, is this a real new finding for this year or are people looking harder and sending their sightings in more often as Manx Basking Shark Watch becomes better known?

This small shark was in Port Erin Bay for most of the 24th. it was happily feeding quite close inshore, as small sharks often do. Many people took a great deal of pleasure from watching this shark. MOST people kept a very respectful distance from this shark. Very well done everyone. Please be aware that it is against the law to get too close to these protected animals unless you have  special license from DAFF for filming or scientific work. On the same day we saw a shark with very nasty propeller injuries. I know it is difficult when they are everywhere but let's hope that is the last injured shark of the season.

Malcolm Lambert took this great picture from a boat (no he wasn't too close, he's got an amazing camera)! I think that he should sell it to the Bay Hotel for a good meal for 2! Link here to his gallery of photos from that day.  www.phlog.im/baskingsharks

Here is another charming basking shark cartoon from Derek Pitman. No more words needed!

How wonderful, They have arrived in force today, sightings all the way from Santon Head (East coast) to Peel! it's very interesting how these first waves of sharks tend to hit the East coast first.

 I think he's really getting into this basking shark cartoon lark now!

 Derek Pitman has very kindly done us some more cartoons for the website. You will find them in the kids section and in the Basking Shark Code of Conduct. Thankyou very much Derek. they are a valuable addition to the website.

We are delighted to announce that we now have a new Marine Officer at the Manx Wildlife Trust. Eleanor Stone took up the three year position last week. Her extensive experience in large marine animals will doubtless make a huge difference to the Manx Wildlife Trust and to Manx Basking Shark Watch. 

We are MOST grateful to the Manx Government departments of DAFF and DoTL for funding 2/3rds of Eleanor's post. 

This means that the Manx Basking Shark Watch team now counts 14, Jackie Hall (coordinator), Graham Hall (boat, technical and engineering), Eleanor Stone (Marine Officer Manx Wildlife Trust) and our invaluable team of website volunteers, Richard Hartnoll, Christina Johnstone, Phil North, Mike and Chris Bates, Kim Kneen, Lottie Ray and Lamara Craine. The basking shark steering group keeps the whole thing running smoothly. It is is composed of Dr Richard Hartnoll, Duncan Bridges and Dr Fiona Gell. Dr Hartnoll keeps us on the straight and narrow about scientific matters. Duncan Bridges (director of the Manx Wildlife Trust) has the unenviable job of sorting MBSW finances as we are a Manx Wildlife Trust project. Dr Gell (Wildlife and Conservation Officer for the Manx Goverment's Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries) organises our filming and scientific licenses. We cannot do ANYTHING without her permission.

We could not achieve what we do without each and every one of you. Thankyou all so much. 

Dr Greg Skomal, a shark scientist who visited the Isle of Man last summer, has had great success with his basking shark tagging project in America. His team tagged 35 basking sharks and some of them overwintered in deep water in the Caribbean. See the articles at-

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/baskingshark/ 

and 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6261396.ece

Well done Greg!

Hurray! The basking sharks are here in numbers!

Yesterday, May 10th, was a perfect basking shark watching day. Sunday (so plenty of people looking), sunny, warm (15 degrees C air temperature), flat calm seas and plenty of harbour porpoise to be seen. It is still very early for the basking sharks to arrive in decent numbers though so we were delighted to have 4 reports of basking sharks yesterday, 2 off Niarbyl, 1 off Port Sodrick, 1 off Fleshwick and 1 North of Peel. Rumour has it that there were 4 off Peel Head but I haven't had that report yet.

The Scottish government has tightened the restrictions on the appalling shark-finning trade as described in this article.

Bob Taylor, skipper of Gemini bags the first shark of the season!

I wouldn't mind but  I (Jackie Hall) have just spent 3 hours down at the Sound because I thought I would see the first shark of the season today. Today is May 2nd. It is warm, sunny and a little breezy. There are gannets diving in all over the place. This normally indicates that there are fish eating the plankton and that you might see basking sharks as well. I didn't see one! I did see two harbour porpoise and an extravagant number of grey seals lounging around on Kitterland but it's just not the same!

Very well done Bob!

 A big PS here. We have just received a sighting from David Goldstaw who saw a 4-6m shark off Glen Maye on 25 April! Sorry Bob! 

Our local BBC reporter Ariane Barua has written this article about the basking shark conference. Link to it at this URL-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/isleofman/content/articles/2009/04/14/sharkconference_feature.shtml 

We have managed to negotiate cheaper rates for local people wanting to attend the 'Basking Sharks: A Local Perspective" conference this August 2nd-5th at the Port Erin Art Centre. 

Venue: Erin Arts Centre, Port Erin, Isle of Man.

Outline programme:

Sunday 2 August:       afternoon and evening - registration and icebreaker

Monday 3 August:       presentations, discussions and posters, evening – social event

Tuesday 4 August:       presentation, discussions and posters, evening –                                                    conference dinner

Wednesday 5 August:  boat trips/ shore based Basking Shark watching or technical        workshop for Basking Shark researchers

Thursday 6 August:     Basking Shark Biodiversity Action Plan meeting (organised by     The Wildlife Trusts)

Local registration rates for Manx residents

1. Early bird rate (book before 5 May 2009) £47.50 + £7.13 VAT             Total price = £54.63

2. Standard rate (after 5 May 2009) £62.50 + £9.38 VAT                         Total price = £71.88

These options include conference pack, icebreaker event on Sunday 2 August, 2 days of conference on 3 & 4 August and lunches and refreshments on both days.

3. Early bird one day registration (book before 5 May 2009) £24 + £3.60 VAT Total price = £27.60

4. Standard one day registration (after 5 May 2009) £32 + £4.80 VAT              Total price = £38.80

These options include conference pack, 1 full conference day and lunch and refreshments on one day.

Manx students and school pupils who are interested in attending should contact us for student rates.

Conference dinner and Ceilidh – Tues 4^th August             Total price = £35

Download the full details here.

 Wildlife Computers make the MK10 PAT satellite tags that we have been using to track basking sharks with. They have very generously donated two of them towards the "Basking Sharks: A Global Perspective" Conference that is to be held here on the Isle of Man this August.

 During June 2008 two masters students were hosted by Manx Basking Shark Watch whilst they did their field work on re-identifying basking sharks from one sighting to the other using different methods of analysing basking shark skin and fin photographs.

Lisa Southwood and Lucy Norris-Green both studied for a postgraduate masters degree at Napier University, studying Wildlife Biology and Conservation. As part of this degree they were required to carry out a research project. They were hosted by MBSW for no fee. Manx Governments' Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) partially funded their stay.  

It would be very desirable to be able to re-identify basking sharks from one sighting to the next in the same way that you can for whales' tail flukes and dolphin dorsal fins. Unfortunately, however, most photographs taken of basking sharks fins look very similar, a black triangle against the bright sea. Much basking shark fin ID work has been done, most notably by Colin Speedie of The Shark Trust. 

We at MBSW have not had access to a very good quality camera until recently so the MBSW fin catalogue is rather small to say the least! Re-identifying basking sharks from one sighting to the next is almost impossible unless you have a VERY good camera, get rather close and take the high resolution picture at right angles to the sharks' dorsal fin. This is near impossible for most people because basking sharks are protected from being harassed in any way so most people do not get that close. MBSW has a DAFF licence to approach them with care to study and tag them.

In June 2008 MBSW started using a pole camera to identify the sex of sharks before tagging them. Lisa Southwood was to use underwater pictures taken by herself under license and stills of video from the MBSW stills camera. In the end she didn't have time to use the video stills. She was still able, using archive films donated to MBSW and some of her own photographs, to assess some methods for re-identifying skin patterns. Lisa's project "Assessment of the reliability of photo identification using skin patterns for the basking shark Cetorhinus maximus in the Irish Sea." can be downloaded here.

 Lucy was using her own camera to assess the reproducability of fin ID from 10 photos known to be of the same shark. She decided that re-identifying the fins only worked when it was being done by an expert and that a program used by scientist to ID whale and dolphin fins and flukes didn't work for basking shark fins. Lucy's project "Photographic identification of basking shark Cetorhinus maximus in coastal waters of the Isle of Man." can be downloaded here. It is two parts. Download the second part here.

The photograph below shows a basking shark that DOES have a distinctive fin. It was taken on 31/05/08 about 1km North of the Sound on the Isle of Man. 

The Isle of Man is incredibly fortunate to have a stunningly beautiful coastline and some amazing marine and coastal wildlife. Basking sharks are some peoples favorite part of this marine wildlife but there is no doubt that the seals, birds, insects and plant life all contribute to a world-class wildlife experience.

This is year 5 of the Manx Basking Shark Watch public sighting scheme. The four years information provided by the public has enabled MBSW to put together maps, graphs and pictures to argue that shore-based basking shark wildlife tourism is feasible. We very much value all your opinions so if you have something to contribute for or against this argument please let us know.

Download this word document here.

The picture is by Ian Judd. It shows a basking shark dorsal fin within easy sight of the Peel shore. 

 In November 2008, Dr Fiona Gell from DAFF and Jackie and Graham Hall from Manx Basking Shark Watch delivered presentations to the European Elasmobranch Society's annual meeting.

• Dr Gell's presentation was "Conservation and management of basking sharks Cetorhinus maximus, in the Isle of Man, British Isles".
• The Manx Basking Shark Watch presentation was "Community Conservation of Basking Sharks: Is too much attention a bad thing"?  

The link to the EEA website is - http://www.eulasmo.org/v.asp?level2=6539&depth=2&level3=6539&level2id=6539&rootid=6464&nextlevel=6539

John Leece and his wife think they saw two basking sharks 500m off Douglas Head on 15/03/09.

We are very pleased to announce that we are now able to edit all the pages of the website.

Paul Steer of Delta IT Services (www.deltait.co.uk) is our website software engineer. He has put a system in to allow us to update all the website. This will be a great boon. For example, we will be able to put more of your pictures in, update the scientific information and the year reports.

There will be a slight delay while I struggle with the new software but this should enable vast improvements of the website. Thankyou Paul!