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ew may have been aware that Aug. 30 was International Whale Shark Day, a day dedicated to celebrating and raising awareness of the largest fish in the world. The shark can grow up to 18 meters long and weigh as much as 20.6 tons, about the size of a school bus.

A whale shark is a shark not a whale; it is a fish that breathes using gills and because it is a shark, its skeleton is not made from bone but cartilage, like our nose and ears. It has many tiny teeth (up to 3,000), but a whale shark cannot bite, making it one of the “friendliest” sharks.

The shark are massive like whales and feed more like whales than a typical shark. Yet they are very docile. They eat plankton, fish and coral eggs, shrimps and bait fish by filtering and sucking in water.

Though they live in warm waters, researchers usually get to study them only in coastal waters where young juvenile males cluster to feed. Much of the sharks’ lives seem to occur in the open sea, leaving chunks of their lives a mystery. For instance, no one has ever seen how whale sharks mate.

The whale shark is classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List because an overall population decline of 63 percent has been inferred over the last 75 years in the Indo-Pacific region.

Fortunately, this gentle giant has been fully protected in Indonesian waters under Marine and Fisheries Ministerial Decree No. 18/2013, hence extractive use of its skin, meat, oil and fins is forbidden. We can see and interact with the shark through responsible eco-tourism.

Whale sharks have gained massive popularity in good and bad ways. In 2011, WWF Indonesia initiated a whale shark program in Teluk Cenderawasih National Park (TCNP) in Papua, together with the park authority and other local stakeholders. No information had been gathered at the time despite increasing tourism activity especially from liveaboard tours.

Whale sharks have become the park’s flagship and main attraction, resulting in a two-fold increase in tourists in a year (from 750 in 2011 to 1,764 visitors in 2012) and five-fold in five years (to 4,803 visitors in 2016).

The remote nature of the park has subdued tourism. Nevertheless, the park released a whale shark interaction code of conduct in 2012 to minimize the impact of tourism on Cenderawasih Bay.

The whale shark population, which is still the largest population in Indonesian waters, comprises 150+ identified individuals.

Some basic rules of the code of conduct are no touching, no riding and no provocation (i.e. loud voice/sound, water splashing, etc) of the animals.

Tourists should maintain their distance, 2 m away from a whale shark’s body and three meters from its tail for their own and the whale shark’s safety (you don’t want a shark with rough skin and the size of a bus to bump into you!). Tourists can take photos, but with no flash as whale shark’s eyes are sensitive to strong light.

Lastly, tourists are suggested to snorkel, though scuba diving with limited numbers (a maximum of two persons per group) is allowed.

The way to interact with whale sharks in TCNP can be found in Indonesia only.

In TCNP whale sharks can be found roaming freely close to bagan (fishing platforms). Bagan operate at the night (especially during the new moon phase) with many lamps to attract small bait fish.

Once the fish gather under the bagan, its liftnet is pulled upward and the fish will be trapped in the net. Whale sharks are attracted to the high concentration of fish and spend some time around the bagan as fishermen might throw away some discarded fish, or the whale shark can just try to suck the net and get fish remnants.

Tourists can just visit operating bagan and ask if there are whale sharks nearby. Tourists can also spend more time with whale sharks because they are attracted to bagan and spend more time near the surface, even though they usually prefer a depth between 50-200 m. A whale shark can dive up to 1,000 m, so we are lucky if we can spot one.

However, with such ease of interaction with the animals, code of conduct violations still occur. In February 2017, there was outcry when an inflight magazine cover showed a snorkeler hugging a whale shark from behind.

The airline, Batik Air, withdrew that edition and released the whale shark interaction code of conduct in the magazine’s March 2017 edition.

In August, a video of a group of divers riding a whale shark in TCNP went viral. Police ordered the arrest of the violators of the above code. They were caught and processed, but given the absence of legally binding rules, no punishment could be brought against them. Nonetheless, the violators were warned and shamed online.

When revenue generated by wildlife-related tourism is higher than that generated by the consumption of wildlife, the animals are worth more alive than dead. But the economics of eco-tourism aren’t always easy to work out.

Many young middle-class Indonesians have made swimming with a whale shark part of their bucket lists. And, with increasing people with disposable income, traveling has become much easier and cheaper.

The interaction code of conduct should be promoted to ensure the maximum benefit for our own species as well as for these gentle beasts known by their Latin name of Rhincodon typus. Swimming with whale sharks is a life-changing experience, but it must be done responsibly.

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Casandra Tania is a master of philosophy student in conservation leadership at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Elis Nurhayati is the communications director at WWF-Indonesia.