Conservation

December 2023

New Developments at Triton Bay Divers

By |2024-01-22T02:33:25+00:00December 15th, 2023|Events, Guests, News, Resort, Uncategorized|

The team here at Triton Bay Divers are excited to provide you an update on improvements we have made over the past year to both the resort and our operations.

Triton Bay Divers now has a new dedicated transfer boat that is larger and much more comfortable and allows us to get guests to the resort in a little over an hour.

Due to demand, we have also added two new Garden Rooms, which are modelled on the Deluxe Seaview (beach front) guest rooms and have a partial sea view. Because we like to keep our dive groups small we have also added a new dive boat to cater for the additional guests, bring the total to 4, and added to our team, now with 28 staff to service our guests.

We are also excited to announce that we now have a dedicated camera room, for those that prefer not to bring their cameras back to their rooms after each dive, and have expanded the dive center, now with its own dedicated compressor room.

Triton Bay Divers is very excited to be able to announce some new additions to our Team.

Vincent Chew who is from Singapore and owns both Blue Manta and White Manta Liveaboards. He has been working in the diving industry for many years and brings with him a vast experience in dive operations.

Nurul Yazid, who is an award winning professional underwater photographer from Malaysia, having been featured in several magazines. She has over 7 years’ experience running a resort on Pom Pom Island in Malaysia.

And Jack Sumantry, from Ambon, Indonesia, who brings many years’ experience of working at resorts and on liveaboards.  He also runs a local Yayasan/NGO educating children on the importance of marine ecosystems.

This new lineup injects fresh energy and knowledge into Triton Bay Divers and we are confident that you, our guests, will benefit.  We are all looking forward to making Triton Bay Divers and your experience with us the best it can be.

We look forward to welcoming you to our little piece of paradise!

The Team wish Jimmy Thai luck in his future ventures.

May 2021

James Wei of Antares, shares his experience with the Whale sharks of Triton Bay

By |2024-01-22T02:33:28+00:00May 31st, 2021|Activities, Conservation, Diving, Guests, UW Photos, whale sharks|

Back about a couple of months ago we spent seven fabulous mornings snorkeling with whale sharks in Triton Bay Indonesia. There were as many as four at a time. They are attracted to the bait fish fishing platforms and if we feed them some of the baitfish, we can move them to the back of Antares. Dolphins, tuna, and mackerel joined the frenzy. In Indonesia this whale shark experience can be had in Cenderwasih, West Nusa Tenggara, and Triton Bay. Triton Bay was by far the best as the water was clear and the sharks show up every day.

April 2021

March 2021

8 NEW Whalesharks Identified in West Papua

By |2024-01-22T02:33:30+00:00March 16th, 2021|Conservation, Diving, News, Resort, Traveling, UW Photos|

After a shout out to some of our previous guests and others who visited Triton Bay, we have managed to help Conservation International identify 8 new Whalesharks that are visiting the region.  Six are from Triton Bay itself and two from Cenderawasih Bay.  If you have any Whaleshark images that shows the ID Spot (please see our earlier blog) please feel free to share them with us and Conservation International.  You never know you may have one that has not yet been identified and you can name it!!!

We would like introduce you to our newly named Whalesharks:

Firstly, those identified by our Guests: Rob & Susie Andrews, Marie Tartar and Faye Simanjutak.

Steven Genkins (Seadoc) managed to identify 5 new whalesharks, and named one after each of his immediate family member and their pet Dog Tyrion!

February 2021

Name your very own Whaleshark

By |2024-01-22T02:33:31+00:00February 6th, 2021|Conservation, Diving|

To all Divers or Snorkelers that have visited West Papua and particularly Triton Bay.  This could be your chance to get a Whaleshark named after you…..

Triton Bay Divers is working closely with Conservation International (CI) to monitor the whaleshark population in our area and the rest of West Papua. Prior to our guests identifying 8 new whalesharks, CI had recorded 197 different individuals by Mid 2020 in this region. We ask for your help in trying to identify more whalesharks from the area. Please see Mark Erdmann’s (Vice President, Asia Pacific Marine Programs, Conservation International) message below. Also please feel free to post the image of your whaleshark to Facebook or Instagram and tag us, for all to see. Thanks so much…

Greetings, and allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is Mark Erdmann, and I’m a coral reef ecologist and the head of Conservation International’s Asia Pacific marine programs. I’m writing to you all to encourage you to consider submitting any images you may have taken of whale sharks during your time in Triton Bay or at Triton Bay Divers. As you may be aware, every individual whale shark has its own unique pattern of spots and swirls, much like the fingerprints of humans. As scientists and conservationists, we are interested in understanding both the overall population size of whale sharks in Kaimana and West Papua, as well as their movements and growth over time – and we can use these individual identification patterns to construct photo ID databases that allow us to do just that. We began collecting data on Triton Bay’s whale sharks in 2015, and since that time we’ve compiled identification photos of 37 different individuals ranging in size from 2m to 8.1m. Interestingly only 3 of these individuals were females – the rest were all juvenile males, which is typical of many whale shark aggregations worldwide. For the whole of West Papua, we now have 197 individuals in our database (12 females, the rest males), with most of these from Cendrawasih Bay, but also 8 from Raja Ampat.

In addition to maintaining our own detailed database of West Papua whale sharks, we also submit all images to the “Wildbook for Whale Sharks” global database, which allows us to check if any of our sharks have been previously seen elsewhere. Of the 197 individuals in our West Papua database, three of them have also been recorded from Gorontalo (Sulawesi Island in central Indonesia), and one of them, “Hula” – a 7.4m male, was actually recorded 3 times at Ningaloo, Western Australia in 2010 – and since that time has been recorded 5 times in Triton Bay between 2018-2019. This resighting (spanning a decade) gives you an idea of the power of maintaining these photo ID databases – we can monitor growth and movement over that entire 10 year period.

We have also satellite tagged 8 of the whale sharks from Triton Bay, which has allowed us to keep track of their movements in high resolution over the course of a roughly two-year period of battery life of the tag. Our 8 tagged sharks in Triton Bay have shown some amazing movements – Hula, for instance (the shark that was first spotted in Ningaloo), covered nearly 8000km in his first 14 months’ of tagging – swimming from Triton Bay down into the Arafura Sea, tracing the outer Banda Arc south of Timor-Leste and into Australian waters, and then back to Triton Bay! Most of the whale sharks we’ve tagged in Triton Bay have show significant seasonal migrations, leaving Triton Bay about the time the SE Monsoon starts to blow in May, and then returning to Triton once things calm down again in October/November. During the big wave season from May-September, they often head into the Arafura Sea, into Australian waters, or some go directly west to Wakatobi or Sulawesi. But they always return to Triton! During their trips away from Triton, we’ve had them dive as deep as 1880m!!

We’d like to ask your help to allow us to further expand our knowledge of Triton Bay’s whalesharks by submitting any photos you may have of whale sharks from your time at Triton Bay. Optimally, we are looking for images of the left side of the animal (the main photo ID “thumbprint” is left side, just behind gills and back to about the dorsal fin – see photo attached below), but we can handle right side shots, as well as underside shots that might tell us the sex of your shark, and video works as well. We don’t need super high resolution images, but better that they are at least reasonable resolution so we can blow them up and look closely at the spot patterns. You will be credited for any photos you submit, and we will only use them in the photo ID database; you are welcome to put watermarked copyrights on them as well if you like. If the shark you submit is a new one to our database that is not yet named, then you will be given the honour of naming it! Optimally, any photos can be labelled with the date that you took them, and if you happened to see the sex of the shark or estimate its size, we love that information as well – but its not necessary if you don’t know. Images/videos can be sent directly to me ([email protected]), or if they are large feel free to use Dropbox or any other file transfer mechanism.

Thank you very much in advance for your help with our research on Triton Bay’s whalesharks!!

Mark Erdmann, PhD

Vice President, Asia Pacific Marine Programs

Conservation International

Email: [email protected]

December 2020

State of the Bird’s Head Seascape MPA 2019

By |2024-01-22T02:33:33+00:00December 6th, 2020|Conservation|

Triton Bay (Kaimana) is one of three regions in West Papua, Indonesia, that comprise the Bird’s Head Seascape, which is generally recognized as the global epicenter of marine biodiversity.  This area is a major priority for the Indonesian government and global NGO’s such as Conservation International, the Nature Conservatory, the World Wildlife Fund, amongst others, and a network of Marine Park Areas (MPAs) have been established over the past decade throughout the region.  For those interested, this report provides an update on the state of the MPA network and provides a detailed look at the work that these NGOs do here.  It can be downloaded from this link.

January 2019

Dr. Mark Erdmann on Conservation

By |2024-01-22T02:33:36+00:00January 12th, 2019|Conservation|

Underwater Tribe talks to Dr. Erdmann of Conservation International about his almost 3 decades working in marine conservation in Indonesia and the South Pacific.  From the beginning of his career, to the explosive growth of tourism in Raja Ampat, to his current projects, the podcast examines the issues that conservationists face.  This is a must watch for those who wish to dig deeper and learn more about the development of marine tourism in West Papua.

January 2018

Visiting Scientists

By |2024-02-14T08:01:44+00:00January 14th, 2018|Conservation|

In April 2018, Triton Bay Divers will be hosting Dr. Heike Vester of Ocean Sounds and Dr. Ricardo Tapilatu of the University of Papua.  They will be looking at the suitability of conducting scientific research from the resort during the northern (boreal) summer months when we are closed for diving.  During their stay, they will each a conduct a talk on their area of expertise.

“Whales in a Changing World – Raja Ampat”
Dr. Heike Vester (Ocean Sounds) will talk about her 3 years research in Raja Ampat and present over 17 species of marine mammals. Whales and dolphins are not well studied in this area and her presentation is one of the first to document the pictures, videos and sounds of most of these elusive and beautiful species.  Even though the waters of Raja Ampat are well protected, marine mammals face threats and challenges that are man made, from uncontrolled boat traffic, unregulated whale watching, to plastic pollution and signs of climate change. We aim to study marine mammals in order to help maintain and develop better marine protection to ensure respectful and humane interactions between people and marine mammals.

Saving Pacific-travelling sea turtle species (Leatherback and Green) at Bird’s Head Seascape – Papua Barat – Indonesia’.  Dr. Ricardo Tapilatu has been to Kaimana many times for his work with Conservation International.  Leatherback turtles are critically endangered and West Papua is one of one of their few remaining nesting grounds, while green turtles nest on a small island in the western part of Kaimana Regency.  Dr. Tapilatu’s present research projects are focused on developing conservation strategies for optimizing hatchling production from nesting beaches of the Bird’s Head Seascape in Indonesia and beyond, while mitigating the effects of global climate change.  His blog can be found by clicking on this link.

If you would like to meet Drs. Vester and Tapilatu and learn more about their research, there are currently two rooms available during the week of April 7~14 when they will be staying for a few days.  Please contact us soon at [email protected] as we do not expect these rooms will be available for very long.

November 2017

Guest Review of Triton Bay

By |2018-03-04T01:29:26+00:00November 15th, 2017|Uncategorized|

Check out Paolo Isgro’s review on Wetpixels forum following his stay with us last year.  We are looking forward to seeing more of his amazing photographs after his second stay with us this December.  Below are a few of the images showcased in his trip report.  Thanks Paolo for sharing.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=60852

 

April 2017

Tagging Whale Sharks

By |2019-01-12T17:26:08+00:00April 12th, 2017|Conservation, Diving, Guests, UW Photos|

In early February, our guests had the opportunity to observe a team from Conservation International (CI) mount a satellite tag on a whale shark.  The satellite tags record location, depth, and water temperature, and transmits that data every time the dorsal fin of the shark breaks the surface.  This information will allow them to monitor the whale sharks movements over the next two years.  According to CI, their program is the only one of its kind in the world.  They currently have tagged less than 20 whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay and only 4 in Triton Bay as of Feb 2017.

Very little is known about whale sharks.  CI’s monitoring and ID program here and in Cenderawasih Bay indicate that well over 90% of the 100+ individuals who have been identified so far are young males.  They don’t know where the females or the adults are, and it is becoming apparent that Cenderawasih & Triton Bay must be some kind of nursery for young whale sharks.  Of the sharks that we have seen ourselves here, most are between 3~9m.  Our guests help contribute to the database by providing photos of the area around the shark’s left dorsal fin for identification.

Triton Bay Divers would like to thank Dr. Mark Erdmann, Abraham Sinapar, and the team from CI for the opportunity to observe them in their work.  To learn more about CI’s whale shark monitoring program, please check out this link:

http://blog.conservation.org/tag/whale-sharks/

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