Scientists have made an important discovery by documenting the migration of a whale shark between Madagascar and the Seychelles. A young male, named Mistral, covered a distance of over 1200 km. He was first spotted in the waters of Madagascar in 2019, and in August 2025, he was seen near Mahé Island in the Seychelles.
Since 2015, the Madagascar Whale Shark Research Project team has been maintaining databases with photographs of these animals. These images help track the movements of individual specimens.
The male known as MD-393 was recorded in November 2015 near Nosy Be Island in Madagascar, where he measured 4.5 meters in length. In 2019, he was again captured on camera in the same waters.
On August 29, 2025, researchers filmed Mistral near Mahé Island in the Seychelles, and by that time, his length had reached 6 meters. The distance between the observation points was over 1200 km.
This discovery confirms that whale sharks are capable of migrating between Madagascar and other regions of the western Indian Ocean.
The results of this study were published in the journal Oryx.
Stella Diamant, a representative of the Madagascar project, suggested that young individuals migrate in search of food. Many whale sharks return to Nosy Be during the breeding season and can travel thousands of kilometers along the coast over several years.
Whale sharks are listed as endangered species. They often fall victim to collisions with vessels or get caught in nets while tuna fishing. In the Seychelles, this species is protected by law, whereas there is no such protection in Madagascar.
The record of the whale shark named Mistral making a record migration of 1200 km from Madagascar to the Seychelles first appeared on the K-News website.
