I wish they would stop trying to put whale sharks in aquariums. They don't survive. They're filter feeders which I think is a pretty tough thing to replicate in a tank. Also they are not well understood yet and spend a large portion of their time out there somewhere in the ocean. Marine biologists are only able to student them in certain parts of the world for certain time periods but they remain quite a mystery.
If people want to see them they should head to La Paz or Holbox in Mexico or Gladden Spit in Belize or Utila in Honduras. They are amazing to swim beside.
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Originally Posted by Bertuzzied
How do they feed the whale sharks? don't they only eat plankton?
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They also eat small fish. On a trip to Utila we were looking for them and the tell tale sign was if you saw "a boil" which was lots of Benito fish jumping at the surface. We never got to see one there unfortunately. But you're right, the ones we saw and swam with in La Paz were filter feeding in the current, eating plankton and other "ocean soup".