even though the tagging expedition to malpelo columbia took place prior to the formation of the the Watermen Project it is an important story, relevant to the creation of our organisation and evolution.

malpelo Island is a marine protected area in the eastern pacific ocean which falls under the governance of columbia. This is a rich and diverse ecosystem and one of our founders was there to tag scalloped hammerhead sharks along with two other species but the hammerheads were the priority. the scientists theorised that these scalloped hammerheads were not just staying in malopelo but journeying throughout the entire eastern pacific to the galapagos islands, cocos and in shore along the eastern pacific.

the team tagged a total of 46 sharks and later when the data was analysed, the scientific team had concrete scientific data to promote the creation of a larger marine protected area in the eastern pacific. however, even today, 16 years later there has been little advancement towards this final goal due to the slow moving and often stagnant political machine. it is in part, due to this lack of movement and action that our team decided, within the financial limits of our funding, to film, document and share the information with the public. this is the reason we work to create immersive documentary films and why we continue to support science and education.