The Big Five: The Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino and Cheetah. The Whale is likely going to be included in the list.
Kenya remains one of the major tourists destinations in the world with the pull majorly coming from wildlife, favorable climate, long sand beaches rich culture and traditions among other attractions and for long Kenyans ave grown to know the Lion, elephant, Buffalo, Cheetah and the Rhino as the ‘Big Five’.
Forget about that for now, Kenya could soon be a nation of the ‘Big Six’ Wildlife attraction up from the original Big Five if the revelations of an underwater diver will be anything to go by.
Mr. Volker Bassen who is founder of the East African Whale Shark Trust (EAWST), says Kenya is inching closer to successful inclusion of Whale Shark in the list of the ‘big six’. Volker said that Kenya is currently the only country in the world that can boast the BIG 6.
A whale swimming through the waters.
“A whale shark can grow as large as 6 elephants, it is the biggest fish in the ocean and a gentle giant, it even lets you swim with it, completely harmless and calls Kenya it’s home” he says.
Volker says that in other places around the world, where the whale shark is known to congregate, its presence has led to a tourism boom.
He adds that tens of thousands of tourists flock to countries like Australia, Philippines and Mexico hoping to get a chance to swim with these majestic sharks.
“It is a wildlife experience of a lifetime, nothing beats being in the water next to one of these leviathans, it’s like being thrown back 200 million years in time, jurassic park!
These sharks existed 200 million years before the dinosaurs” says Bassen. And the Kenyan public can have rare sighting of the Whale Shark off Diani beaches where EAWST in conjunction with Whale Shark Adventures Diani are starting their annual whale shark research expeditions starting this month of February.