Utilizing Tec Training for Whale Shark Research

Technical diving allows access to deeper dive sites, with longer bottom times, beyond the limits of traditional recreational diving, which around Utila allows divers to see caverns, deep drop off's and off shore sea mounts with more abundant fish life.

However in 2009 and 2010 our technical diving team at UDC have been working with EcoOcean and Deep Blue dive resort to help switch out the acoustic sensors used for tracking and recording the activity of tagged Whale sharks. There are 3 sensors located at different dive sites around Utila, and they are secured at depths of 130ft/40mt to 165ft/50mt. The sensors batteries are good for 15 months and the UDC tec team had volunteered their staff, training and expertise in deep water projects to locate the current sensors, and to change them with new sensors and replace the anchoring lines which are subject to corrosion.

Tracking the Whale Sharks!

Researchers are now looking into the data collected from the sensors over the last 15 months to determine which tagged Whalesharks have been in the waters around Utila, and to compare these recordings to data collected from sensors located in Belize and Mexico. For more information on Eco-ocean, visit their website www.ecocean.org.