Whale Shark

About the Whale Shark

Whale Sharks are the largest fish in the world. They can reach lengths of over 20m/66 ft and weigh over 40 tons. They can be found in most of the world warm oceans except the Mediterranean. These sharks like water temperatures of over 20 degrees.

Whale sharks are harmless to humans. Their large mouth is used for filter feeding. As they swim they move their head from side to side. Their main prey is plankton but they’re also known to eat small fish and crustaceans.

Rhincodon Typus is easily identifiable by its size, the white and yellow spots in their skin, stripes on the side of its body, huge mouth at the front tip of its head, and small eyes.

They’re highly migratory and are known to travel vast distances, albeit slowly. Their average pace is about 25 km/h, 15.5 mph. Whale sharks are usually found alone, but they also aggregate in groups of over 100 individuals. The largest group ever documented had over 1000 whale sharks.

Whale sharks reach sexual maturity at about 30 years of age. Females have been found carrying over 300 pups. The pups are born about half a meter long. They are ovoviviparous, which means that they reproduce by developing eggs inside the mother’s body, where the embryos hatch internally and are born as live young, nourished by the egg yolk rather than a placenta.

Whale sharks attract tourism. Australia, Belize, Ecuador, and Mexico have legal regulated sighting opportunities. The Ningaloo Reef in Australia, the Galapagos Islands, and Quintana Roo, Mexico, are some of the most popular spots for whale shark tourism.

Major contemporary threats at the global level include incidental catch in a wide range of net fisheries and serious injury and inferred mortality through vessel strikes. If landed, the meat is consumed locally and the fins are likely to enter international trade. Target and incidental catch fisheries have impacted Whale Sharks in the Indo-Pacific, and there is substantial evidence for a reduction of large adult sharks, decreases in catch-per-unit-effort from fisheries, and declining sightings-per-unit-effort from fisheries and sight-resight studies. While a number of commercial fisheries for the species closed during the 1990–2000s, the species still faces a significant level of threat. Based on count data, modelled population estimates and habitat availability, 75% of the global Whale Shark population is inferred to occur in the Indo-Pacific, and 25% in the Atlantic. An overall decline of >65% is inferred in the Indo-Pacific over the last 120 years (three generations), resulting in a subpopulation assessment of Endangered. In the Atlantic Ocean, the overall population decline is considered to be lower at ≥30%, resulting in a subpopulation assessment of Vulnerable. Given the bulk of the global population occurs in the Indo-Pacific, based on abundance data and actual levels of exploitation, a population reduction of 50–79% was inferred over the last three generations (120 years). Therefore, the species is assessed as Endangered A2bd.

The Whale Shark has been listed in a number of international conventions and agreements, summarized by Pierce et al. (2021a).

The species is included in Annex I (Highly Migratory Species) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which provides a framework for the conservation and management of fisheries, and other uses of the seas. To date, no management initiatives enacted through UNCLOS have included the Whale Shark.

The Whale Shark was listed on Appendix II of the Bonn Convention for the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in 1999 and Appendix I in 2017. As of 2022, CMS had 133 Parties, with many Whale Shark range states included (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals 2025). Parties to CMS should ‘… endeavour to strictly protect them by: prohibiting the taking of such species, with very restricted scope for exceptions; conserving and where appropriate restoring their habitats; preventing, removing or mitigating obstacles to their migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them’ (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals 2025). The Whale Shark is also listed on Annex I of the CMS Sharks Memorandum of Understanding, a non-legally binding instrument that aims to facilitate a favourable conservation status for migratory sharks. As of 2025, there were 49 signatories to the Sharks MOU, which aims to improve scientific knowledge, ensure fisheries sustainability, protect critical habitats, movement corridors, and life stages of sharks, while increasing public participation and national, regional and international cooperation towards these objectives.

The Whale Shark was listed on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) in 2003. Exports from CITES Parties need to be accompanied by permits based on findings that parts are sourced from legal and sustainable fisheries.

A number of range states have species-specific legal protections in place for Whale Sharks, and other countries have prohibited any commercial fishing of sharks in their exclusive economic zones (EEZ), creating a ‘shark sanctuary’ (Pierce et al. 2021a). With these included, national- or territory-level protection measures for Whale Sharks are known to be in place in American Samoa, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belize, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Caribbean Netherlands, Cayman Islands, Chagos Archipelago, China, Colombia, Congo-Brazzaville, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Curacao, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, French Polynesia, Gabon, Grenada, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Indonesia, India, Israel, Kuwait, Maldives, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mayotte (France), Mexico, Micronesia, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Reunion, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, South Africa, St Helena Island (UK), St Maarten, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tokelau, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, and Wallis and Futuna (France). However, species-level legislative protection remains an important conservation goal in some countries where significant Whale Shark aggregations are present, including Madagascar (Diamant et al. 2021), Oman, and Qatar (Robinson et al. 2016). Whale Sharks are also present, seasonally or year-round, in many marine protected areas throughout their distribution, including some that have been purposefully set up to protect important Whale Shark habitats, such as the Whale Shark Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.

As the two major ongoing threats to the global Whale Shark population, fishing (particularly large-scale net fisheries) and vessel strike are the highest priorities for conservation intervention. Targeted catches of Whale Sharks are now likely to be rare, and can be reduced further by continued efforts to end illegal trade. Further data on incidental catch in nets, including the number of Whale Sharks entangled and their locations, will allow for conservation actions to reduce this source of mortality. Training in safe release practices for Whale Sharks caught in net fisheries, as has been implemented in India (Akhilesh et al. 2013) and Pakistan (Razzaque et al. 2020), is an important facet of this work.

Vessel strike mitigation measures have successfully been implemented for large cetacean species (Schoeman et al. 2020). The small spatial extent and known seasonality of many Whale Shark aggregations mean that targeted re-routing of shipping routes or speed reductions are likely to be similarly effective in reducing Whale Shark injury and mortalities (Womersley et al. 2024a).

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Whale Shark Gallery