{"id":3651,"date":"2022-10-20T13:39:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T13:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2022-10-20T13:39:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T13:39:34","slug":"finally-back-in-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/finally-back-in-the-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Our fifth season: finally back in the field!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 <\/span><\/span>And the whale sharks are here \ud83e\udd73<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the 2019 season ended, like everyone we got caught in the pandemic chaos, and continuing our research efforts on-site has been challenging. We are so excited to be finally back in the field with the whale sharks! Here is an update on our work over the recent months.<\/p>\n

\"\"Back to basics <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Coming back to Madagascar post-covid resulted in many changes locally for the team, for instance our old center doesn’t exist anymore, and logistically quite a few aspects had to be addressed.<\/p>\n

\n

In Mid-August, L\u00e9once joined Stella, and is now managing the volunteer programme and all data entry processes. Remotely, Amy and Claire assist L\u00e9once with the data processing. Justin has coded an app which is being used by the field team while at sea, which greatly facilitates our work! We have 12 volunteers joining us this year to help collect data, and two master students, including a Malagasy scientist, doing their master thesis with the project. A huge thank you to Julie, Emilie, Laura and Aliz\u00e9e for their help as volunteers and amazing days at sea! We are incredibly\u00a0grateful<\/strong> to all volunteers and project partners who have contributed to our massive restructuring in 2022.<\/p>\n

Whale sharks started arriving in late September as usual, and are now officially here. We continue our photo-identification efforts with our partner operator Baleines Rand’eau, and thanks to external contributions from other operators have now identified more than 50 individuals!<\/p>\n

\"\"Deploying the acoustic array<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With support from the Shark Conservation Fund and Florida International University, and in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Marine Megafauna Fondation, this year we are (finally!) deploying underwater receiver stations, as well as acoustic tags, to monitor the fine-scale movements and timings of whale shark presence year-round in Nosy Be. This data will also support the expansion of the two existing Marine Protected Areas in the region, to try to encompass more of the whale shark feeding area.<\/p>\n

The first part of the mission has been to deploy the 9 stations while scuba diving. Thanks to support from Forever Dive, Nosy Decouvertes and Oceane\u2019s Dream, and despite the windy conditions ahead of the season, Stella and L\u00e9once successfully anchored the stations across the bay at various shallow locations.<\/p>\n

The second part is taking place now and involves deploying acoustic tags on 30 different whale sharks, in order to track their presence across the bay and once the season ends. These tags will hopefully emit shark location data for the next five years.<\/p>\n

\"\"Operator training<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n

This year we partnered with Cetamada to create more user-friendly training materials for our annual operator training workshops. Through the creation of short videos in both French and English, we were able to deliver more than 10 training sessions across Nosy Be, Nosy Sakatia and Nosy Komba, raising awareness about the code of conduct. We are eagerly awaiting the signature of the new law on responsible encounters with marine wildlife, which we contributed to on the whale shark aspect. This will require all tourism operators to follow the code of conduct per Malagasy law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

A big season ahead<\/h2>\n
\n

This year has been a big year for the Madagascar Whale Shark Project, with a lot of restructuring and strategic thinking. We are also collaborating on a few research projects, and hosting a few groups this year\/ Funding wise, we are still looking for long-term donors and partners to cover our core costs.<\/p>\n

We are also identifying new whale sharks who\u00a0need new names, did you know you could pick a name and\u00a0adopt a whale shark<\/a>? For regular updates, please follow us on social media and sign up to our newsletter.<\/p>\n

Thanks again for your continued support, and we will be back with more news soon!<\/p>\n

The Madagascar Whale Shark Project Team<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 <\/span><\/span>Et les requins baleine sont l\u00e0 <\/strong>\ud83e\udd73<\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nos efforts de recherche se sont arr\u00eat\u00e9s en 2020 avec la pand\u00e9mie de COVID-19 mais cette ann\u00e9e toute l\u2019\u00e9quipe du MWSP est sur place plus motiv\u00e9e que jamais pour reprendre nos activit\u00e9s de recherche et de sensibilisation ! Voici un r\u00e9sum\u00e9 des derni\u00e8res nouvelles de Nosy Be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"Retour aux sources<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

Le retour \u00e0 Madagascar apr\u00e8s ces deux ann\u00e9es d\u2019absence a entra\u00een\u00e9 de nombreux changements au niveau local, notre ancien centre n’existe plus, et plusieurs aspects logistiques ont d\u00fb \u00eatre revus. Les premi\u00e8res semaines ont \u00e9t\u00e9 intenses !<\/p>\n

Mi-ao\u00fbt, L\u00e9once a rejoint Stella et g\u00e8re d\u00e9sormais le programme de volontariat et les actions li\u00e9es \u00e0 la saisie des donn\u00e9es. \u00c0 distance, Amy et Claire apportent leur aide \u00e9galement et Justin, notre expert en data, a d\u00e9velopp\u00e9 une application pour faciliter l’ensemble du processus de la saisie au traitement de la donn\u00e9e ! Cette ann\u00e9e, 12 volontaires nous rejoignent pour la collecte en mer et deux \u00e9tudiants en master, dont un scientifique malgache, r\u00e9alisent leur th\u00e8se de master avec le projet. Un \u00e9norme merci \u00e0 Julie, Emilie, Laura et Aliz\u00e9e pour cette premi\u00e8re session riches en \u00e9motion sur l’eau !<\/p>\n

Les requins baleine ont point\u00e9 le bout de leur nez mi-septembre et sont aujourd\u2019hui officiellement l\u00e0. Nous continuons nos efforts de photo-identification, avec notre op\u00e9rateur partenaire Baleines Rand’eau, et nous avons identifi\u00e9 \u00e0 ce jour plus de 50 individus !<\/p>\n

\"\"D\u00e9ploiement du r\u00e9seau acoustique<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Nous d\u00e9ployons cette ann\u00e9e des stations de r\u00e9ception sous-marines, ainsi que des balises acoustiques, pour surveiller la pr\u00e9sence des requins baleine tout au long de l’ann\u00e9e \u00e0 Nosy Be. Ces donn\u00e9es nous permettront de mieux comprendre la distribution g\u00e9ographique des requins et d\u2019apporter plus de d\u00e9tails concernant leur pr\u00e9sence saisonni\u00e8re dans la baie, afin de soutenir l’expansion des deux zones marines prot\u00e9g\u00e9es existantes dans la r\u00e9gion. La premi\u00e8re \u00e9tape, r\u00e9alis\u00e9e au mois d\u2019ao\u00fbt, a consist\u00e9 \u00e0 d\u00e9ployer les 9 stations en plong\u00e9e sous-marine, l\u2019\u00e9quipe a r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 ancrer les stations \u00e0 travers la baie \u00e0 diff\u00e9rents endroits peu profonds.La deuxi\u00e8me \u00e9tape consiste \u00e0 d\u00e9ployer les balises sur 30 requins baleine diff\u00e9rents, ces balises \u00e9mettront des donn\u00e9es de localisation pendant les cinq prochaines ann\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

Nous remercions nos partenaires sans qui rien ne serait possible\u00a0: Shark Conservation Fund, Florida International University, Wildlife Conservation Society et la Marine Megafauna Fondation, et sur place, Forever Dive, Nosy D\u00e9couvertes et Oceane’s Dream pour leur soutien.<\/p>\n

\"\"Formation des op\u00e9rateurs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cette ann\u00e9e, nous nous sommes associ\u00e9s \u00e0 Cetamada afin de d\u00e9velopper de courtes vid\u00e9os pour nos ateliers annuels de formation. Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 cette nouvelle plateforme de formation, nous avons pu organiser plus de 10 sessions de sensibilisation au code de conduite \u00e0 Nosy Be, Nosy Sakatia et Nosy Komba. Nous attendons avec impatience la signature de la nouvelle loi (\u00e0 laquelle nous avons contribu\u00e9), qui doit r\u00e9glementer les rencontres avec la faune marine,\u00a0 pour \u00e9tendre nos formations \u00e0 tous les op\u00e9rateurs de la r\u00e9gion.<\/p>\n

\"\"Une grande saison qui commence<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Le Madagascar Whale Shark Project \u00e9volue et de nouvelles activit\u00e9s se d\u00e9veloppent, nous \u00e9largissons notre \u00e9quipe locale \u00e0 Madagascar afin d’assurer la p\u00e9rennit\u00e9 de nos actions. Cette saison, nous collaborons sur divers projets scientifiques, en plus d’accueillir des groupes priv\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

Cependant nous avons encore et toujours besoin de soutien, nous sommes toujours \u00e0 la recherche de donateurs et de partenaires qui souhaitent soutenir le projet sur la dur\u00e9e. Nous identifions \u00e9galement de nouveaux requins baleine qui ont besoin d’\u00eatre nomm\u00e9s. Saviez-vous que vous pouviez nommer et\u00a0adopter un requin baleine<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Pour suivre nos activit\u00e9s, n\u2019h\u00e9sitez pas \u00e0 vous abonner \u00e0 nos r\u00e9seaux sociaux et notre newsletter.<\/p>\n

Merci encore de votre fid\u00e9lit\u00e9 et votre soutien, et \u00e0 tr\u00e8s vite !<\/p>\n

L’\u00e9quipe du Madagascar Whale Shark Project<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 And the whale sharks are here \ud83e\udd73   After the 2019 season ended, like everyone we got caught in the pandemic chaos, and continuing our research efforts on-site has been challenging. We are so excited to be finally back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-season-update"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madawhalesharks.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}