The five-member research team is part of a Cetacean Population Study team under a United Nations Development Programme project on Mainstreaming Coastal and Marine Biodiversity. They had been surveying the waters over six months for humpback dolphins when the whales were observed.

“It is estimated that there are only 9,000 such whales in the oceans. They are the largest mammals in the world, even bigger than the Dinosaurs, but still they are least studied mammals,” said N Vasudevan, Maharashtra’s Chief Conservator of the Forest and Head of Mangroves Cell.

HMS Tamar was a 4,600 tons displacement sail and steam-powered Royal Navy troopship launched in Britain in 1863. She served as a supply ship from 1897 to 1941 and gave her name to the shore station HMS Tamar in Hong Kong (1897 to 1997).

In 1897 Tamar was hulked as a base ship and used as the Hong Kong receiving ship and served as the 'name' ship for R.N. headquarters until it was replaced by the shore station, which was named HMS Tamar, after the ship.

According to scientists, around 200 artificial reefs made of tires are in existence worldwide, notably in waters off the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Israel. In most cases, such efforts were halted after tires were found to be unstable.

The shark travelled from the chilly waters off Nova Scotia to the warm, inviting ocean near Venezuela to the clear waters of Puerto Rico and then north again to the waters where he was first caught.

NSU’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) began tagging mako sharks in 2009 to study their migratory patterns and now undertakes expeditions worldwide to study them. The school’s marine experts have tagged mako sharks as far away as Mexico and New Zealand. In addition to makos, they have also tracked tiger, oceanic white tip and sand tiger sharks, as well as blue marlin.