The National Parks Department of Thailand aims to boost the administration of the country’s popular tourist conservation areas following the return of blacktip reef sharks to Maya Bay.
Maya Bay was closed for 4 years, from 2018 to 2022, to facilitate the recovery of the island’s wildlife. The bay’s reputation surged after the release of the 2000 movie The Beach, that includes Leonardo Di Caprio, which attracted a large number of guests to the picturesque location, inadvertently damaging much of the island’s marine life.
The closure of Maya Bay helped improve conservation efforts, however there’s a risk of it being destroyed once once more. According to Reuters, as a lot as forty blacktip reef sharks swim within the turquoise shallows whereas roughly four,000 tourists go to the white-sand beach surrounded by towering cliffs every day.
The variety of sharks has increased for the explanation that inflow of tour boats and tourists brought on nearly each final one to go away the bay. Limited tourism resumed in 2022, however conservationists warn that shark numbers are declining as soon as again, making it troublesome for Maya Bay to strike a stability between preserving a pristine ecosystem and sustaining the livelihoods of those that depend on tourism.
Petch Manopawitr, a marine advisor to Thailand’s National Parks Department, said…
“We don’t discuss closing down all over the place or decreasing the tourism numbers, but I suppose we’re talking about managing it correctly.”
But with the variety of sharks already dwindling, authorities and conservationists are intent on preserving tourists from swimming in the bay and driving away the baby sharks, which disguise in the shallows and coral reefs from cannibalistic adults.
Maya Bay is situated on Phi Phi Leh Island, a small limestone island coated in lush greenery, situated within the Andaman Sea off the western coast of Thailand.
Marine researcher Metavee Chuangcharoendee acknowledged that the island has become a nursery for young sharks as soon as once more, because of the hiatus in tourism.
Metavee and other researchers on the Maya Shark Watch Project use underwater cameras and drones to watch the behaviour, feeding areas, and breeding patterns of sharks.
Between November 2021, once they launched a pilot research, and the tip of 2022, they noticed a decline in shark numbers as tourists started to return. On the QT , named after the black colouration on their dorsal fins and tails, roam the Andaman Sea and other tropical areas but their numbers are decreasing due to overfishing, based on the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
There are a number of elements that impact the sharks round Phi Phi Leh Island, together with seasonal movement patterns and human actions like fishing.
Metavee talked about that with the shark population already declining, authorities and conservationists must forestall tourists from swimming in the bay and disturbing the child sharks that search refuge within the shallows and coral reefs away from the predatory adults.
“We are hoping that with the restrictions in place, we will mitigate the disturbance to (the sharks). We are doing this research in hopes that we are able to find one of the best ways to manage and the finest way for tourism and the setting to coexist.”