SPEND SOME TIME WITH THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE SEA
Each year divers and snorkelers book tours with Peninsula tour operators for a chance to see the magnificent Rhincodon typus out at the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve, which is located about 22 miles (36km) away from Placencia Village.
Our best whale shark sighting times run from March through June around the full moon when the sharks feed on snapper spawn.
The filter feeder, which can grow into the size of a school bus at 43 feet long and weighing 47,000 pounds is considered vulnerable to extinction by scientists and classified as endangered. Previously thought to travel across the world’s oceans for food, new research is showing that may actually be swimming just a few hundred kilometers from their feeding grounds.
LEADING THE WAY IN CONSERVATION
In some parts of the world, they are fished for their meat or fins and may also become entangled in nets thrown into the sea by commercial fishing vessels. Luckily, in Belize, they are only valued for their touristic and ecological value and are offered complete legal protection. For many tour guides in Placencia, a whale shark sighting is one of the major highlights of their careers.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature combined data from both the Atlantic Ocean and the Indo-Pacific region of Earth’s oceans, that accounts for an estimated 75 percent of the shark’s population, shows that the global whale shark population has likely declined by more than 50 percent over the past 75 years. The world’s largest feeding sites reportedly hosts only a few hundred sharks tops. How many sharks will come to the waters of
Southern Belize next year? There’s only one way to find out, and our tour guides of Placencia are waiting to welcome you.
