Tracking the Gentle Giant: Whale Shark Conservation Through Satellite Science

The whale shark (Rhincodon typus), the world’s largest fish, has become a flagship species for global marine conservation owing to its immense size, filter-feeding ecology, and gentle behaviour toward humans. Despite its charismatic status, the species has been classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2016, with the Indo-Pacific population estimated to have declined by 50–79%. Historical targeted fishing, bycatch in tuna fisheries, illegal trade in fins and liver oil, plastic pollution, and vessel strikes continue to threaten the species, even as international protections under CITES and CMS have expanded. Over the past decade, satellite-tracking research in Indonesia’s Bird’s Head Seascape and Coral Triangle has tagged more than 70 individuals, revealing that whale sharks cross at least 13 national maritime boundaries and spend substantial portions of their lives in international waters beyond the reach of any single nation’s protection. Long-term photo-identification work in Mozambique, by contrast, has documented an alarming and unexplained decline exceeding 85% at a once-thriving aggregation site, underscoring that cessation of direct fishing does not guarantee recovery. Emerging tools biologging cameras, citizen-science photo-matching, and artificial intelligence are expanding understanding of whale shark behaviour and movement. This review synthesises recent findings on whale shark population status, threats, and tracking research, and argues that effective long-term conservation must extend beyond isolated marine protected areas to encompass migratory corridors, high-seas governance, and sustained collaboration with local fishing communities