- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 05/Jul 18:47

Juvenile whale shark sighted in Chaguaramas

A juvenile whale shark was stranded at Peake Yacht Services marina, in Chaguaramas, for about half an hour on July 5, before it found its way back into open waters. A video of the gentle giant was captured on video by Leslieann Sambrano. Sambrano got the surprise of her life when she looked up from her work at the facility to see the large fish in shallow waters. The housekeeper told Newsday she was cleaning a grill at the boating facility in Chaguaramas around 8.16 am when she happened to turn around and saw something large moving in the water. “I recognised it as a whale shark and immediately stopped what I was doing and ran for my phone. He swam around a bit and then went under some boats and the jetty before swimming back out to sea. “You never see anything like that except in a movie, so when I saw it, I was so amazed.” Sambrano instantly identified the animal because, when British national Peter Smith was bitten by a bull shark in Tobago in April of last year, she did some research on sharks. She said the shark, which looked to be about 15 feet long in the video, seemed to be injured as there was a visible scrape along its back. It remained swimming around the marina for about half an hour. She posted the video on social media, and it went viral within hours. A marine expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Newsday that while it was not common, there have been numerous sightings of whale sharks in TT waters. According to a staffer, a manager of the Institute of Marine Affairs called Peake's to confirm the sighting and to see if the animal was still there, but by that time, it had already left. According to National Geographic, whale sharks swim just below the water’s surface, feeding on plankton and small fish by jutting out their jaws and passively filtering everything in their path. It is described as the largest fish in the sea; they can grow up to 40 feet long with an average lifespan of 70 years. “The whale shark's flattened head sports a blunt snout above its mouth with short barbels protruding from its nostrils. Its back and sides are grey to brown with white spots among pale vertical and horizontal stripes, and its belly is white. Its two dorsal fins are set rearward on its body, which ends in a large dual-lobbed caudal fin (or tail).” They could be found around the world in tropical and temperate oceans. The post Juvenile whale shark sighted in Chaguaramas appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.