Locals gather around the carcass of a dead whale shark, caught by fishermen in the sea off of Surabaya, on the East Java island, on October 12, 2015. Fishermen originally planned to cut the giant fish measuring seven meters and weighing two tons and sell its meat but authorities from local fishery agencies arrived and negotiated with villagers to bury the whaleshark. Indonesia in 2013 has declared the whale shark a protected species, including it in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species. Despite their mammoth size, these docile sharks, the largest fish in the sea, are filter feeders and are harmless to humans.
