Country diary: Ten tonnes of solid muscle, basking sharks are booming here once again
Port Erin Bay, Isle of Man: A few years ago they disappeared from these shores, but with food stocks on the up, they’ve made a magnificent return Not long ago, my encounters with basking sharks were pretty close up. When a scientist researching them off the Isle of Man needed help, with my experience of driving inflatable ribs, I was tasked with steering his small boat up to a 10-tonne shark, closely and carefully en
Open original article- Ledger record
- #1364
- First seen
- 21 Aug 2026, 07:19 UTC
- Last checked
- 21 Aug 2026, 23:20 UTC
- Version history
- 1 version
- Current fingerprint
9bd3cbc2cf1e...1cc558
Publisher layer
Recorded article metadata
- Publisher
- The Guardian
- Country
- England / United Kingdom
- Source published
- 21 Aug 2026, 04:30 UTC
- Source updated
- No update timestamp supplied
- Byline
- Tim Earl
- Section
- Environment
Port Erin Bay, Isle of Man: A few years ago they disappeared from these shores, but with food stocks on the up, they’ve made a magnificent return Not long ago, my encounters with basking sharks were pretty close up. When a scientist researching them off the Isle of Man needed help, with my experience of driving inflatable ribs, I was tasked with steering his small boat up to a 10-tonne shark, closely and carefully en
Change layer
Observed version timeline
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1
Country diary: Ten tonnes of solid muscle, basking sharks are booming here once again
Port Erin Bay, Isle of Man: A few years ago they disappeared from these shores, but with food stocks on the up, they’ve made a magnificent return Not long ago, my encounters with basking sharks were pretty close up. When a scientist researching them off the Isle of Man needed help, with my experience of driving inflatable ribs, I was tasked with steering his small boat up to a 10-tonne shark, closely and carefully en
Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags- Version SHA-256
9bd3cbc2cf1e...1cc558- Capture SHA-256
fcad294fc0a6...2e0e83
Interpretation layer
Labels with declared origins
Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.
- machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
- publisher category Environment rss-category
- publisher category Rural affairs rss-category
- publisher category UK news rss-category
Public response layer
Reception snapshots
Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.
Evidence layer
Capture provenance
- Capture ID
- #757
- Observed
- 21 Aug 2026, 07:19 UTC
- HTTP result
- 200 / parsed
- Raw payload
- 471,283 bytes, private gzip evidence
- Collector
- news-ledger/0.1
- Public boundary
- metadata and excerpt