The Marine Conservation Society launched the Basking Shark Watch Project in 1987 with the following aims:

• Engage the public in basking shark monitoring
  
• Maintain the national database of information on numbers, geographical and size distribution, behaviour, and movements of basking sharks in UK and Irish waters
  
• Collect and analyze sightings data to improve our knowledge of basking shark ecology, population dynamics and behaviour
  
• Raise public awareness of the basking shark and its protected status amongst the public and sea users
  
• Provide feedback to the public and interested parties on the UK distribution of basking sharks
  
• Provide information to support the objectives and targets in the UK Basking Shark Species Action Plan and extended protection measures in Northeast Atlantic waters. Observations can be made by anyone lucky enough to see basking sharks whilst spending time at sea or on the coast.

Conserving Endangered Basking Sharks Project (CEBS)

MCS is part of a consortium called the Conserving Endangered Basking Sharks Project (CEBS) along with five other similar organisations: the Marine Biological Association (MBA), the Shark Trust, the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust (HWDT), Marine Environmental Research and the UK Wildlife Trusts (MWT), International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The overall aim of the CEBS project is to bring together organisations with complementary datasets that together will enable the population size of basking sharks to be more accurately estimated, and their critical habitat defined. The specific objectives of CEBS are to:

• Map the distribution and movements of basking sharks from data collected by project partners within a single, spatially explicit database (ArcGIS).
  
• Identify the environmental characteristics of their preferred habitat by analysing shark locations with respect to these variables (e.g. water depth, sea surface temperature, prey abundance trends).
  
• Quantify the annual number of sharks in UK waters by analysing survey data with bias reduction techniques based on sighting probabilities calculated using both survey and behaviour datasets.
  
• Assess using spatial modelling whether expansions of the protection zone (up to 200 miles) will encompass the major part of basking shark habitat off UK coasts.

How has it helped?

The information received has hugely increased our knowledge of basking shark movements, population distribution and environmental factors which affect their behaviour. Your data has provided evidence that conservation measures are required to ensure the future survival of the basking shark.
The project has been instrumental in providing information to MCS campaigns that, combined with other voices, have resulted in the full protection of the sharks under UK law and more recently the addition of the basking shark to the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Appendix II. This means that although trade in basking shark products is still legal, it must be closely monitored and an assessment on the basking shark population must be undertaken. Your sightings data is now being used to help local Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) and support the UK Species Action Plan for the sharks.

If you see a shark, please fill in our on-line Report Card (see section menu)

Taking photographs of basking sharks (the European Basking Shark Identification Project)

One way of identifying individual basking sharks is to take high resolution photographs of their fins and send these images to the basking shark photo identification project which hold a database of basking shark fin photographs. By comparing one year of images of shark fins with another, and finding the same features on fins, the Shark Trust/National Marine Aquarium staff are able to identify the same sharks in different places in different years. This information over time is helping to identify shark movements around the UK and into foreign waters.

Please send any photos you have of basking sharks to www.baskingsharks.co.uk and fill in the online form. They will require similar sighting information as that requested by MCS to go with the photographs.

Watch great footage of basking sharks shot by Dan Burton.