A Long Awaited Sequel: The first International Basking Shark Conference since 2009!

By Emilie De Loose (Conference Organiser and Volunteer Researcher)

In 2025, the Irish Basking Shark Group organised and co-hosted with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) the first International Conference on Basking Sharks since 2009 here in Ireland. All in all the event was a splashing success! From August 29-31st, nearly 120 shark enthusiasts joined us in the lecture halls of the Atlantic Technology University (ATU) in Galway with 2 dozen more following online, to expand their knowledge of the fantastic basking shark. Researchers, students, photographers and storytellers from Ireland, UK, Germany, France, the USA, Japan, Brazil, New Zealand and more shared their knowledge and experiences over the course of two days. With the help of FairSeas, SharkTrust and the Marine Institute, we tackled basking shark threats, marine protected areas and how the community can work together to share data in engaging workshops.

New and emerging researchers shared the stage with the “old-heads” who were some of the first to map basking shark distribution, behaviour, ecology and physiology. Theories were swapped, questions were answered and countless new ones were formed for us to tackle by the next conference. It was a unique opportunity for people who mainly knew each other from emails, citations and online meetings to sit together around a table and strategize how the coming years of research may look. The conference, however, did not only focus on research and science, but also on history, art, community and music. The tale of the basking shark cannot be shared without looking deeper into the rich and often sad history of the species. During the conference we explored these topics repeatedly, but no where more than at our Ocean Literacy Day on Achill Island. Read more about our “fieldtrip finale” of the conference here.