With it's coastal fishing town has become a favourite destination
for local and abroad tourists.
Tathra Wharf
This is the story of the Whale Shark:
Source from : Narooma News
Posted by : Stan Gorton on 23/02/2012 11:06:00 AM
A rare whale shark encounter at the Tathra wharf
ANGLERS and tourists on the Tathra wharf were treated to the spectacular sight of a massive whale shark slowly cruising past on Wednesday evening.
Three teenagers who had been fishing off the wharf actually jumped in and swam a short distance with the massive fish, an experience normally reserved for those who travel to tropical locations such as WA’s Ningaloo Reef.
One of the teenagers lucky enough to swim with the whale shark was local Tathra school boy Jared Graham-Higgs, 15, who estimated it to be between 8 and 10-metres long.
Jared said he was fishing when the whale shark cruised within 1 metre of the wharf and he soon identified it as a whale shark.
He and his two mates then jumped in and swam with the shark until it moved out into the bay off Tathra Beach, an experience he described as amazing even without goggles.
“He was just cruising along and we swam beside him until he started to dive a little deeper when other people starting jumping off the wharf,” he said.
Jared’s other brush with fame relating to the ocean came from appearing as an extra as a small boy in the American documentary series Nature: Killers in Eden when he ran along the beach yelling “Rusho!”, which is what whalers did when whales showed up.
The Far South Coast is at the southerly boundary of the whale shark’s migration but they have been encountered as far south as Eden, and the water at Tathra this week is a warm 22 degrees with most likely an abundance of plankton attracting the distance-swimming filter feeder.
Wednesday’s whale shark was last seen by the dozens of people on the wharf swimming toward the beach and north on Tathra Bay.
The Tathra wharf has seen its fair share of big fish action in recent weeks.
One angler fishing for small tuna like bonito with a popper-style lure hooked a marlin with the crowd again witnessing the big fish speed off into the distance with the hapless angler powerless to stop the creature with his relatively puny gear.
There has also been a fair bit of heavy gear fishing going on, despite the local council ordinance specifically banning shark fishing from the wharf.
Several small bronze whalers and hammerheads have been caught on whole fish baits, brought up onto the wharf and dispatched by the anglers, much to the amazement and occasional distress from the spectators.
At least one larger whaler shark has been landed and released from the rocks adjacent to the wharf, while there was also one report of an endangered grey nurse shark hooked and brought up to the surface at the wharf before being released, although this has not been verified at all.
Whale shark facts
According to the Australian Department of Environment, whale sharks are widely distributed in Australian waters.
Although most common at Ningaloo Marine Park (and to a lesser extent at Christmas Island and in the Coral Sea), sightings have been confirmed further south than Kalbarri (on the mid-west coast of Western Australia) and Eden (on the New South Wales South Coast).
Whale sharks have also been recorded from Commonwealth waters between Australia and Indonesia.
This species is thought to prefer surface sea-water temperatures between 21 - 25°C.
This species is rare. Prior to the mid-1980's, there had been less than 350 confirmed reports of whale sharks worldwide.
Since this time, consistent sightings have been recorded in Australia. A lucrative ecotourism industry revolving around their annual appearance at Ningaloo Marine Park on the Western Australian northwest coast is now well established.
One of only three filter-feeding sharks (the other two being the basking and megamouth sharks), the whale shark feeds on minute organisms including krill, crab larvae, jellyfish etc. Although they have approximately 3000 tiny teeth (each less than 6 millimetres in length), these teeth are not used while feeding. Instead, the whale shark can sieve prey items as small as 1 millimetre through the fine mesh of the gill-rakers. They are able to open their mouth to a great width (greater than 1 metre) to optimise feeding.
Satellite tracking of whale sharks in US waters and also in the South China Sea reveal that whale sharks can travel great distances (1000's of kilometres).
These migrations may take years to complete. A far greater understanding of whale shark movements will be possible with the continuation of tagging and tracking studies throughout the world.
To date, short-term movements and behaviour of whale sharks at Ningaloo Marine Park have been successfully investigated using acoustic tracking.
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