Today was an early start! By 0530 the whole team had already arrived at the fishing harbour in Labuan Bajo, ready to start work.

With the sun just peaking above the horizon, we reviewed our roles one last time before positioning ourselves on the habour side. Our task this morning was a practical exercise on landing site monitoring. A new experience for the interns, and an opportunity to evaluate monitoring approaches that could be adopted by the local Marine and Fisheries Agency to support  the West Manggarai Manta Ray Sanctuary.

Our survey team at the harbour

Our focus was on threatened and endangered species, and it was reassuring to learn that most fishermen were already aware of the recent governor’s decree that prohibits fishing for sharks, rays and other threatened species in West Manggarai. No mantas were landed today, and we recorded only a single shark–a juvenile that had been caught accidentally by a fisherman targeting small pelagic fish. An important next step for the Marine and Fisheries Agency to ensure that such bycatch is properly reported.

Interestingly, we learned that the market value for sharks is currently at a low, and this may have contributed to their absence at the fishing harbour today. This provides a window of opportunity for the Marine and Fisheries Agency to establish a monitoring and enforcement strategy, and to discourage an increase in fishing pressure if market value rise.

In the afternoon, we were back in the classroom, writing up our data from this morning, and putting the finishing touches to this week’s video diary. Stay tuned for the premier coming soon!

One juvenile shark at Labuan Bajo fish market