Volunteers from all over Cornwall have recently completed three months of cliff top surveys from Lands End adding to the trust's understanding of these huge sea creatures.
In June alone they recorded a total of 546 sightings, which can help provide new insights into the secretive lives of the sharks and provide a deeper understanding of basking shark distribution and behaviour around Cornwall.
The Basking Shark project, which has now run for three consecutive summers, was this year coordinated by volunteer Dr Jane Manning. She said: "You don't have to get on a boat to see a basking shark up close. Sometimes they swim in near to the shore, and the volunteers have seen them less than 50 metres away.
"Watching from the cliffs is probably the best way to see them because it costs nothing and does not involve disturbing the sharks in any way, which means they are more likely to stick around for longer."
The volunteers, who were stationed at Hella Point near Land's End, saw peak numbers of basking sharks in June this year compared to July and August.
A total of 546 basking shark sightings were recorded in June, with sharks appearing most days. "The higher number of sightings in June may be linked to a late spring plankton bloom," Dr Manning said. "Basking sharks are generally seen by people when they are feeding on plankton at the surface of the ocean. If the number of basking shark records is related to the timing of the plankton bloom, we may see the number of sightings pick up in autumn when the plankton flourishes again," she added.
Results of this year's survey are yet to be analysed and the Trust will produce a full report later this year. Basking sharks are not the only marine life that Cornwall has to offer, and even when shark sightings have been few and far between, the volunteers have been kept busy recording the presence of other wildlife.
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