Whale Sharks at the Bagans of Saleh Bay, Sumbawa

Saleh Bay sits on the north of Sumbawa, in Indonesia. Bagans are traditional lift-net platforms. At night the fishers hang lights over the water to draw in small fish, and then lift the nets. Whale sharks have learned that the nets mean food. In the morning they may stay near a handful of platforms, including waters used by people from Labuhan Jambu, before they move back to deeper water. So, can you see whale sharks at the Saleh Bay bagans? Sometimes, and with no promise. And whether you should depends on how the visit is run.

I want to tell this story as an open question, not a polished advert, because the science is still moving and the ethics are not simple.

What the bagans of Saleh Bay are

A bagan is a floating wooden platform with a net hung beneath it. It is a working fishing tool, not a tourist attraction. The sharks here follow prey that the fishery already gathers. A tour-operator article I read argues that the sharks come mainly because every net that comes up leaks krill and small fish from the bottom, and that the sharks were there before tourism. That is plausible, but it comes from a company that sells trips, so I treat it as one view, not a finding.

This is not the same story as a hand-fed site such as Oslob in the Philippines, where tourists watch sharks fed by boatmen. The mechanism here is different. But different is not the same as settled, and our article on the ethical issues at Oslob shows what a feeding-driven site can look like.

What does the research show so far?

Several threads of research touch Saleh Bay. Since 2015, researchers have worked with bagan fishers to fit whale sharks with fin-mounted satellite tags in Saleh Bay and other Indonesian sites, including Cenderawasih Bay and Kaimana in West Papua and the Gulf of Tomini in Sulawesi. Reports say the fishers were wary at first of holding sharks in their nets. A May 2026 Mongabay article links this ten-year tagging effort to a new protected area in Indonesia. I could not read the full text, so I will not say more than that.

In 2025, a paper in the journal Diversity reported the first records of newborn whale sharks in Indonesia, including a male caught in a bagan lift-net in Saleh Bay in September 2024. The authors suggest Saleh Bay may be a pupping and early nursery area, and they stress the value of citizen science with bagan fishers. Notice the words: “may be”. It is a strong hint, not a confirmed birthing ground.

A 2026 study in Frontiers in Marine Science is reported to have found that Saleh Bay and Cenderawasih Bay are among very few places where whale sharks stay year-round. I only saw this through a secondary blog, so please check the original paper before relying on it.

What is still unsettled

Researchers are still asking how much extra time the animals spend at the nets, how tourism boats should behave, and what happens when too many guests arrive at once. A study from IPB University in Indonesia concluded that whale shark tourism in Saleh Bay has a negative effect on the sharks’ welfare, and called for better operating procedures. I could only read a summary, so I do not know the details of the method.

That is why I will not tell you that visiting is fine, or that it is wrong. What I can say is that two things can be true at once. Sharks use the bagans because there is food. And tourism on top of that can add stress. When the question is open, the careful choice is to give the animal more space, not less.

Food, nets and a possible nursery

In places like this, the ethical problem is almost always the food cue. If a shark stays because it is fed for the tourist’s benefit, it is being held. If it stays because a fishery already leaks food, the situation is less clear, but the nets themselves carry risk. A newborn shark in a lift-net is a reminder that fishing gear and young animals share the same water. Citizen science with the fishers, as the authors of the 2025 paper recommend, is one of the more hopeful signs. The people who work the platforms every night are also the best observers of the bay.

Indonesia protects whale sharks, but I did not re-check the exact legal text for this article, and rules and permits for tourism can change. Check the current rule before you travel, and ask the operator which authority permits the visit. Wildlife encounters are unpredictable. Whale shark watching should always follow local regulations and experienced professional guidance.

What a careful visit looks like

A careful visit is a short, quiet watch from the platform or a boat. No touching, no chasing, and no promise that a shark will clock in for your session. A hurried visit looks different: a queue, leftover bait thrown to keep the animal there, and a guest in the water who thinks the shark came for them. Ask how many people share the platform, how long each group stays, whether anything is thrown into the water, and whether the operator will leave if the shark moves away.

The responsible takeaway is to see Saleh Bay as a working fishery that a wild animal has learned to use, not as a show. If the morning feels like a pen, you leave. On the water, a low-volume mask is easier to clear if you snorkel somewhere the rules clearly allow it, a long-sleeve rash guard protects from sun and cold wind, and a roll-top dry bag keeps your phone dry on a small boat. For other places where whale sharks and rules meet, see what Ningaloo gets right and South Ari and the propellers.

Where Ocean Calling stands

Ocean Calling will not sell a whale shark morning that depends on the animal being held by food. We do not run a Saleh Bay trip, and we would not sell an in-water encounter here while the rules and the welfare evidence are unclear. Where we talk about this bay, we talk about it honestly. Our hosted retreats stay small, up to six guests, our local operators are vetted, and any guest can skip any activity. If this made you curious about experiencing it yourself, you can explore our upcoming retreats. You can also meet the species on the whale shark page of our Ocean Atlas. And remember that a flight to Indonesia has a real carbon cost, so it deserves a slow, careful trip.

Questions people ask

Wildlife encounters are never guaranteed and never forced. Ocean Calling works only with vetted, ethical local operators, and every animal is free to approach, or not, entirely on its own terms.