On the Expedition

Swimming with the world's largest fish to learn how to sustain their dwindled population.

Ningaloo Reef is Australia's longest fringing reef, stretching over nearly 300 kilometres and providing habitat for abundant sea life, including whale sharks. You will spend half of your days here accompanying commercial whale shark-watching charters, and distributing surveys to passengers. When you find whale sharks, you will jump in the water to snorkel near them, take identifying photographs of their spot patterns, measure them, and record their behavior relative to other divers. You will also record the type and number of fish and other organisms in association with each shark. On alternate days you'll work in the lab, processing photographic data, collating tourist survey data, and analyzing plankton samples. Volunteers must be able swimmers, comfortable with surface-diving to five metres.

Meals and Accommodations

In the coastal resort town of Exmouth, 30 kilometres from the research site, you will stay in modern accommodations with swimming pool, restaurant, and bar close by. Rooms are "family style," so they can accommodate four or five team members, with modern bathrooms and hot showers. You'll rotate with your teammates to prepare hearty communal meals in a fully equipped kitchen, using ingredients available at local markets. Possibilities include locally available seafood, pasta, salads, and barbecues. There are also excellent restaurants nearby.

About the Research Area

Ningaloo Reef is Australia’s longest fringing reef, stretching over 300 kilometres. It is enclosed within the Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP), designated in 1987.

The landscape in this area includes low scrub, wildflowers and some trees, and animals include emus and kangaroos, osprey, goannas (rarely seen), bush turkey, white cockatoos and pink and grey galahs. Besides whale sharks, marine wildlife in NMP includes dolphins (Indo-Pacific and bottlenose), occasional whales (humpback and killer), manta rays, marine turtles (loggerhead, green, flatback and hawksbill), reef sharks, over 200 species of coral, 600 species of mollusc and 500 species of fish, among others.

The lives of the earliest inhabitants of Cape Range were intimately tied to the climate and coastline of the area. These people made use of caves and rock shelters, leaving deposits stratified over time recording shelter use and the resources that sustained human existence. These deposits show the crucial role the sea and coastal resources played in the economies of the Aboriginal people of Cape Range. You will have the opportunity to learn about Aboriginal culture from representatives of the traditional owners, the Thalanyji people.