Healthy fish, healthy oceans

A whale shark with dozens of juvenile golden trevally, which feed on leftovers or parasites from the shark, and sometimes rely on it for protection. — Matthew Abbott/The New York Times

ON a calm morning in May, Brianna Beaulieu, a master’s student in marine biology at the University of Western Australia, and several researchers from around the world boarded two research vessels bound for Ningaloo Reef on Australia’s west coast.

The scientists had invested months of planning to spend just a few minutes in the water collecting data on one of the ocean’s most mysterious animals – whale sharks.