The relatively little known about the Thresher Shark. In Alor the local fishermen have been catching them for many years, for meat and to sell the fins. A high percentage of the sharks caught are pregnant females. Two young Indonesians heard about this and decided to investigate. They started Thresher Shark Indonesia, raised funding and then started a tagging program to gather more information. They then started working on informing the fishermen and began working with them to switch to more sustainable species and provided them with the boats and equipment to do this.
We joined them in Alor to witness the culmination, the hand-over and signing ceremony in which the fishermen publicly stated their intentions to no longer target the Thresher Shark.
Its very cool to see young Indonesians beginning to be guardians of their amazing underwater paradise.
Enjoi.

#Indonesia #Learningbydoing #sailing

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Closed Captions (CC):

00:19
Good morning guys. We just got a mooring boy here in front of Lualu Village. It's a tiny
00:26
little village in the fjord here of Alor. close to Kalabahi. We've come here to film
00:31
the Thresher Shark Conservation group. This is a group comprised of young Indonesian people
00:36
who are worried about the future of of different marine species so pretty awesome, enjoy the video.
00:42
Alor is a small group of islands in the southeastern part of Indonesia. You've got
00:47
ocean on the north, ocean on the south, strong tidal currents going between them. This obviously affects
00:52
the water clarity but also the marine environment is just you know amazing in these places the
00:58
divers who really want to see these sorts of things they know about a law and there are
01:02
quite a few dive operations going here and quite a few liverboard boats also visit the region
01:08
part of the reason the marine environment is so impressive here is because of the upwellings the
01:13
water temperature can change 10 degrees in a short space of time thresher sharks are found worldwide
01:19
there are three or four different varieties they live in deep water they don't bite humans
01:24
and so because of that we don't really know much about them we do know that they live relatively
01:30
short life spans they mature very late and they only have two to three pups per year thresher
01:37
sharks have a very long tail it's actually as long as their whole body can be several meters long
01:42
and actually use this tail for fishing they come towards their bait fish and then they turn around
01:47
and sort of whack the water with their tails and this creates a shock wave and stuns or kills the
01:53
small fish and then the thresher shark goes and feeds on them they don't really have big teeth
01:57
they don't you know they're not aggressive sharks as such sports fishermen worldwide often catch the
02:02
special shark by their tail and this is also how the local fishermen in the two villages in the law
02:08
catch the thresher shark they've made a lure that's very successful it's a big hook
02:12
with rooster feathers and other colorful feathers attached to it and they'll dangle that down and
02:17
then they'll just catch the tail of the thresher shark and pull them up they do eat the meat but
02:24
the main money comes from thinning these sharks so i'm devi from treasure shack indonesia eighty
02:30
percent of the treasure shack that being catched by the fishermens in these two village are female
02:35
and then most of them are pregnant so with this information we think allure might be a critical
02:41
habitat for the treasure shot because they are coming here uh uh during the their pregnancy
02:47
maybe their uh like a nursery ground here with the research we we're doing two uh two method
02:54
we put the satellite pack and also acoustic pack to the treasure shack what we do with these two
03:00
tech we want to know their movement and then which area that they visited during their time in allure
03:28
we started this project since 2018 some of our friends told us that there is a village
03:34
in a lure who catch the treasure shark we found that the fishermens here are actually
03:40
catching treasure shark because it's easy for them to catch treasure shop because the location
03:46
to catch the treasure check it's not really far away from their village it just takes like 15
03:51
minutes from them using a boat to to catch the treasure shot and then the price of the treasure
03:57
for them is actually good also for feeding their family and and to fulfill their basic
04:03
need so right now there are 36 fishermen who work together with us and they are already committed to
04:10
stop uh catching treasure chef and to use these uh facilities that we provide to catch uh other
04:19
type of fish for example tuna groupers snipers and others fallable fish which not harm the ecosystem
04:38
so we're invited to the handing over ceremony at these two villages the fishermen publicly declared
04:44
that they would no longer hunt the thresher shark also part of the ceremony were all the government
04:50
organizations that were involved so the police the local council the ministry of fisheries the
04:58
water police the navy these sorts of things and that also puts pressure on the fishermen to stick
05:03
to their word because they've probably declared in front of all these people that they're gonna stop
05:08
fishing the sharks then they were given title to the new tuna fishing boats beforehand they were
05:15
actually given some training on this new fishing techniques the new areas they would have to go to
05:21
obviously further out to sea so they learn some safety yeah obviously fishing techniques how to
05:26
use the new fishing gear they received and also sustainability like catch numbers sizes
05:32
to try and keep the fishery sustainable for the future as always in indonesia there's a
05:37
lot of talking a lot of speeches but after all was said and done everyone went down to
05:42
the pier where all the five boats have been gathered and uh the government officials and
05:48
the mayor and all these people were taken for a ride in the bay it was all a bit of a symbolic
05:53
gesture but everyone was happy and it sort of seemed like the start of a new life for these guys
06:18
one of the fishermen here on the beach is very very enthusiastic
06:21
and very thankful to the thresher shark foundation for providing him with a new
06:27
livelihood and a one he could feel good about and the one he could teach his kids
06:32
to be proud of right now in kalabaghi we have an office and for full-time staff who work together
06:40
with me we never expect that we can reach this point where we are able to provide the facility
06:46
for the fishermen to stop hunting the treasure shot and then we got a positive response from them
06:53
they are willing to stop catching the treasure shack and also the government are so happy
06:57
because we provide a concrete solution for their people not only asking them stopping
07:03
treasure check but also we have provide them the solutions we are hoping that the successfulness of
07:09
our project can inspire more young indonesian to involve in the conservation world because we have
07:14
a beautiful nature that needs to be protected and we as a young indonesian need to take part on this
07:21
so hopefully we all can do this in the same patients and motivations to protect our nature
07:29
well guys really hope you enjoyed that video we had a lot of fun making it um obviously it's not
07:35
a lot of sailing or our personal adventures in there but i thought it was a pretty interesting
07:41
subject to bring you guys to show you that these young indonesian people are really
07:46
trying to do things themselves to protect their country and their marine environment and at the
07:51
same time looking after their people you know providing the fishermen with an alternative way of
07:58
looking after their families you know so so that was pretty cool we were really impressed by all
08:02
the people working at the swedish shark foundation and also how the fishermen how the locals there
08:09
reacted to them you know like they once they had the information that the thresher sharks
08:14
are very threatened they were you know willing to change their ways and you know traditions
08:21
and the way people have done thing forever generally that's really hard to change that
08:26
so it was quite impressive to see that they were open to that and uh you know that they
08:32
went along with and they signed in front of all these people so good stuff to thresher shark you
08:36
guys are awesome you guys helped us out a lot uh obviously we weren't there personally for the
08:42
tagging part of the whole project so thanks to the first shark foundation for providing us with
08:47
the underwater footage of the sharks otherwise it would have been a pretty boring video to be honest
09:02
thanks to our patrons marie and i are very very appreciative of all the funds and support you guys
09:09
give i also have to at the same time give a shout out to all of you that are sending money every now
09:14
and again to my paypal account because you guys aren't really getting any of the rewards that
09:21
the patrons are getting yeah you still get to watch the videos and uh i send every single
09:26
person who supports on paypal i send a message and a thank you anyway we will see you next week yeah
09:33
we're out on the oceans again we're doing some uh big remote island exploration for the next
09:38
couple of months so um yeah a lot of sailing a lot of cool stuff coming up see you then