Coral catshark comeback

WO HO  our coral catsharks are breeding!!! Great news

In 2013, we bought 25 coral catsharks from the live fish trade and saved them from being eaten. We have also bought Humphead wrasse and Humpback groupers and successfully released them. We released the coral catsharks on Pom Pom Island and now they can be seen on most night dives. 
The great news is that last night we saw a juvenile coral catshark - this cutiepie individual was only just larger than a hand so definitely less than one year old.  Immigration from other islands is of course possible but unlikely given how deep the water is around the island and how few sharks there are on any Semporna reef SO the great conclusion is that we have had breeding success. 

Lets drink a toast to the coral catshark populations that are making an effort to repopulate the pom pom reefs.

With several years of reef recovery, the fish population of the Pom Pom Island protected area is now large enough to support more sharks.  We have a plan to save more sharks from being eaten and reintroduce them to protected reefs.  Click here for more info about our shark saving activities.

Coral cat sharks swimming around the reef - much better than being eaten :-)

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Rescued coral cat sharks released on Pom Pom Island

On a trip to a live fish resturant in Kota Kinabalu, one of our volunteers was so dismayed by the sight of live coral cat sharks for sale in the aquariums that they bought all the sharks to save them from being eaten.  The sharks remained in the rstaurant tanks until we could organise the transport across to Semporna and out to the island.  The initial purchase was 12 sharks but the restaurant aquired an additional 13 before we came to collect our live sharks so we eventually bought and transported 25 small coral catsharks.  These were transported to the island in a large ice chest filled with water and oxygen.  There was no mortality or signs of stress when the sharks were released into the sea at high tide in front of the TRACC camp and Celebes Beach Resort.  Some of the sharks swam off but most were content to hide in or near the rocks on the reef slope.
The next morning no sharks could be found but since they are nocturnal we expected them to hide during the day.

The sharks were seen occasionally on night dives over the next month so hopefully they will settle down and become resident.

Stay posted as we report on sightings and shark activity.

Video 2015 

update  jan 2016