PHUKET - Thailand has launched a leopard shark rewilding initiative in collaboration with the international environmental organisation WildAid and the ocean conservation group Ocean Blue Tree.
The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) on Saturday hosted the official opening of the Thailand Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery (StAR) project, aimed at preserving and enlarging the Indo-Pacific leopard shark (Stegostoma tigrinum) population, which has declined significantly in recent decades.
StAR staff recently relocated the project’s first nine shark pups, raised by experts at Aquaria Phuket, from the Phuket Marine Biological Centre, to a sea cage at Koh Mai Ton. The pups are 14 months old and about 80 to 110 centimetres long.
They will have tracking tools attached during this phase before being fully released into the ocean, said Pinsak Suraswadi, the DMCR director-general. The tracking is for their protection as well as to ascertain the survival rate of the sharks released, he said.
Shark and ray populations continue to decline due to direct and indirect threats such as overfishing and habitat destruction, said Methinee Jungcharoendee, the StAR project manager at WildAid.
“Restoration efforts are challenging because these species grow slowly, reach maturity late and have low reproductive rates,” she said.
“Breeding and reintroducing them into the wild (rewilding) is therefore crucial if their populations and reproduction rates are to be preserved.”
StAR was first trialled in the Raja Ampat Islands of Indonesia in 2022 before being launched unofficially in Thailand last year.
Divers are being encouraged to take underwater photos and videos of leopard sharks spotted in Thai waters so that marine conservationists can study their behaviour and habitat.
The project is part of a population viability analysis which assesses extinction rates and estimates population trends in order to inform conservation plans in Thailand.