International Whale Shark Day Feature: Diver Shares the Magic of a Whale Shark Encounter

By JOLIE POLLARD

Page 9

"I was full of adrenaline, excitement and skepticism, thinking to myself, 'Shit! This thing could swallow me!" -- Placencia Tour Guide and Sea Terra Adventures Owner Devin Lozano recalling his first encounter with a whale shark.

DEVIN LOZANO, 2012

While the date doesn't fall within our whale shark season, Aug. 30 is recognized around the world as International Whale Shark Day honoring a harmless and gentle endangered species that has become a major underwater attraction for Southern Belize and the tourism industry on the Placencia Peninsula.

Each year divers and snorkelers book tours with Peninsula tour operators for a chance to see the magnificent Rhincodon typus out at the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve, which is located about 22 miles (36 km) away from Placencia Village. Our best whale shark sighting times run from March through June around the full moon when the sharks feed on snapper spawn. A total of 13 whale shark sightings were reported to the Southern Environmental Association (SEA) this year. Seven were reportedly seen in May and six in June. Unofficial numbers report sightings in April and July too.

The filter feeder, which can grow into the size of a school bus at 43 feet long and weighing 47,000 pounds is considered vulnerable to extinction by scientists and classified as endangered. Previously thought to travel across the world’s oceans for food, new research is showing that the sharks may actually be swimming just a few hundred kilometers from their feeding grounds. In some parts of the world, they are fished for their meat or fins and may also become entangled in nets thrown into the sea by commercial fishing vessels. Luckily, in Belize, they are only valued for their touristic and ecological value and are offered complete legal protection. For many tour guides in Placencia, a whale shark sighting is one of the major highlights of their careers.

A Placencia tour guide for 13 years, Devin Lozano said during a consecutive good eight years he’s seen an average of 20 sharks per season; in fact, he’s as many as nine sharks in just one dive at Gladden. Formerly a freelance guide, Lozano is now the owner of Sea Terra Adventures, a company that offers both inland and marine adventures, and he plans on taking his guests on whale shark tours next year when the sharks are expected to come again to feed.

Lozano didn’t dive much this year, but was still able to see three sharks, and he is hoping to have continued luck in the years ahead.

The certified dive instructor says he has a strong passion for marine life and even though he’s had the fortune to see so many whale sharks during his career, the encounter is so much more special with first-timers. “What gets me excited all over again is the opportunity to be able to show a whale shark to someone who has never seen one before. That feeling along with seeing them myself, never gets old,” he said. In addition to the feeding site at the Gladden Spit and Silk Caye Marine Reserve, Lozano has also seen the slow-moving giants near Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Pompion Caye, Ranguana Caye, the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve and Holbox, Mexico.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature combined data from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indo-Pacific region of Earth’s oceans, that accounts for an estimated 75 percent of the shark’s population, shows that the global whale shark population has likely declined by more than 50 percent over the past 75 years. The world’s largest feeding sites reportedly hosts only a few hundred sharks tops. How many sharks will come to the waters of Southern Belize next year? There’s only one way to find out, and Devin and our other guides will be waiting.▪

Devin Lozano has seen an enviable number of whale sharks, but nothing excites him more than showing the gentle giant to someone who has never seen the creature before. Largest whale shark Devin's seen? Forty feet!