Manila Bay whale death points to serious problems

Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan, Manila Times 15 Feb 09;

NOT all ends well for stranded whales.

The stranded melon-headed whales saved off Bataan were an exception. Just last December, the lifeless body of a baleen whale was found floating beside a passenger ship along Manila Bay’s Pier 13.

Measuring 9.8 meters and weighing almost three tons, the whale was thought to be either a Minke or a Bryde’s whale.

Uncommon as it may seem, the event may not be an isolated occurrence. In August 2007, another baleen whale carcass was found dead at the mouth of Manila Bay.

Baleen whales may be harmed in a number of ways: entanglement in fishing gear, heavy boat traffic leading to ship strikes, pollution and competition with humans for food resources.

Unlike fish, whales do not have a swim bladder. At death, many of them simply sink. The greatest concern in the United States remains the number of dead whales never seen. Humpback whale scar evidence suggests that only 3 per cent to 10 per cent of entanglements are witnessed and reported.

In the Philippines, where our coastline is twice the length of the entire coastline of the continental US, and where our monitoring and response capacities pale in comparison, is it likely that our situation here is any better?

Contaminants

A US study points out that of the various threats potentially affecting baleen whales, only entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes may be significant at the population level, and then only in those populations which are already at critically low abundance.

Data on the role of contaminants, habitat degradation or disease are insufficient to permit an informed assessment of these threats.

A Longman’s beaked whale, one of the least studied of all whales, stranded and died on a Davao beach. During its necropsy, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources team that removed its internal organs found plastic bags from six countries in its stomach.

Over the last two years, the dead carcasses of two baleen whales that we rarely see in the wild these days, were found floating in the area of Manila Bay. Due to new species information about these large filter feeders, no one can say for sure what species they belong to without a proper DNA analysis.

We are not even certain what whales these were. Can anyone estimate how many more whale deaths may have occurred in and around Manila Bay, which we do not even know about?

Bigger questions

Whales and human beings both make an impact on the marine ecosystems we depend on for food and life. We live on a water planet at the apex of the Coral Triangle. More than just saving whales or dolphins, shouldn’t we be thinking about the life and productivity of our oceans and coasts?

Shouldn’t we ask ourselves how to regenerate the forests we have cut down over the last century, leaving bare mountainsides that now spawn the soil erosion that silts our rivers and blankets our reefs in coastal zones of death?

Shouldn’t we think about finding substitutes for the cocktail of persistent toxins that leach from our factories, plantations, offices or homes, and bio-accumulate in the fish our children eat?

Shouldn’t we look for more effective ways to manage and replace the tons of plastic waste that we throw into the sea every day?

We really have to be seriously thinking about a change of lifestyle. Climate change presents hard evidence that maybe, just maybe, human beings do not always have all the best answers. Fossil fuels were not a good idea after all.

The world is changing. Maybe, these dead whales in Manila Bay are delivering a bigger message. Maybe, it is time we think really hard about what each of us is doing to this planet, and make up our minds to do something right.

(Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan is vice chairman, World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines.)

More whale shark sightings reported in Philippines waters
Gregg Yan, Manila Times 15 Feb 09;

IT was a clear night. A tiny banca bobbed silently along the Calayo River in Nasugbu, Batangas. Mandoy swung his carbide torch, probing the deep darkness for those elusive swarms of krill known locally as alamang.

Suddenly a giant shadow approached from beneath. “Shark!” thought Mandoy, instinctively grabbing a paddle to defend himself.

With great relief the fisherman realized it was no regular shark, but of the gentle kind locals had seen cruising the coasts of Nasugbu for years. In the river with him, a 15-foot long whale shark was feeding on krill.

What began as just another fishing trip turned out to be the first recorded instance of a butanding entering a freshwater body in the Philippines.

Will wonders never cease?

When we hear of whale sharks, we usually think of donsol in Sorsogon, still the largest known seasonal aggregation of them on earth. Interestingly, more and more sightings are now being reported in Nasugbu and Anilao in Batangas, as well as in other parts of the archipelago.

Discovered by Sir Andrew Smith off South Africa in 1828, the whale shark is the world’s largest fish, growing over 40-feet long. Along with the basking and megamouth, it is one of only three filter-feeding sharks.

Despite its immense size and a mouth wide enough to swallow a five-foot tall person tip to toe, the whale shark is quite harmless to humans.

Locals say that butanding have plied these coasts for generations. But never have they stayed more than a few days in one area.

Here in Hamilo Coast, the butanding stayed for over three weeks–according to local fishermen, the first time they ever did so.

Two-and-a-half hours by boat south of Manila are the 13 sea coves of Hamilo Coast. Once a refuge for blast fishermen, these 13 fingers of land are now a unique eco-tourism project of SM Investments Corp. (SMIC). To help sustain the area’s ecological biocapacity while allowing measured economic development, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) partnered with SMIC to preserve Nasugbu’s natural resource base.

The effects of vigorous coastal resource management efforts, including mangrove reforestation, the installation of giant clams and coral reef protection, are clearly in evidence.

Scores of brightly-colored reef fish, from vividly-hued shoals of fusiliers to herds of ghostly batfish, are gradually returning to the coast’s burgeoning coral reefs.

It’s not just the reef fish. Ten kilometers out, local fishermen are reportedly landing more pelagics: yellowfin tuna, blue and black marlin, trevally (talakitok) and Spanish mackerel (tangigue).

Since this attracts fishing boats from all over, local Bantay Dagat patrols must remain doubly vigilant. Recently a dozen baby manta rays frolicked in three feet of water, not something seen every day.

The presence of large filter feeders such as whale sharks, manta rays and even a beached seven-meter long Bryde’s whale could indicate the return of a strong food base. The creatures are probably attracted to the swarms of krill or plankton that feed on the nutrient-rich runoff from nearby Calayo River.

Nasugbu is at the very mouth of one of the country’s top biodiversity spots–the Verde Passage, once cited as the center of the world’s reef fish biodiversity. Thus it becomes all the more crucial to restore the productivity of this coastline that for decades was degraded by blast and cyanide fishing.

Through World Wide Fund and the local government, Bantay Dagat units were reactivated to purge the coasts of illegal fishers. Awareness campaigns are aimed at fishing communities and do not merely tell illegal fishermen to stop–they explain in simple and blunt detail how destructive practices unravel the marine ecosystems and wipe out their major source of protein.

The return of the butanding, rays and large fish, as well as the forthcoming entry of major tourism investments, have only strengthened the local community’s resolve to stamp out destructive fishing practices. Their efforts are obviously paying off, with fish yields on the rise.

(Gregg Yan is Information, Education and Communications Officer, World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines)

Bewitched, bothered, bewildered dolphins’ stranding by the hundreds in Bataan an unusual phenomenon
Manila Times 15 Feb 09;

THE stranding of dolphins by the hundreds in Pilar and Abucay, Bataan peninsula on Tuesday was unusual.

About 300 melon-headed whales approached nearly a kilometer towards the beach—and certain death.

Despite the name, they are a type of dolphin that travels in large schools of several hundred and belong to the family of cetaceans that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.

“This is an unusual phenomenon,” said Director Malcolm Sarmiento of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

He said smaller schools of dolphins numbering “in the tens and twenties” had beached themselves elsewhere in the Philippines previously, but this was the first time so many had done so at the same time and place.

Cetus is Latin for “whale” and “large sea animal” and Greek for “whale” or “any huge fish or sea monster.”

Cetaceans have about 90 species, including the Blue Whale, the largest animal that has ever lived; the highly intelligent and communicative dolphins; the tusked narwhals and blind river dolphins and singing humpback whales.

They are common in places as diverse as the Philippines, the Yangtze, Amazon, Paraná, Indus and Ganges rivers.

There are 26 types of cetaceans in the Philippines, including the bottle-nose dolphins and pygmy blue whales, according to BFAR.

Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the University of the Philippines Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology (UPIESM) and the Ocean Adventure Marine Park in Subic started the Philippine Marine Mammals Stranding Network (PMMSN) coordinate rescue efforts in strandings or beachings.

The last mass stranding involved 12 sperm whales in Capiz in 1956. This time, dynamite fishing could have damaged their ear drums and disrupted the built-in echo-locators—stranding them in Bataan, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

They were lucky to be stranded in a province whose culinary preferences do not include whales and dolphins, unlike in some parts of the Visayas and northern Mindanao.

Using boats and clapping their hands in waist-deep waters, fishermen, locals and the Philippine Coast Guard guided the whales back into the deep sea and safety.

Townfolks raised the alarm early Tuesday when they saw a large school of dolphins in shallow water. Three of the dolphins were found dead and authorities feared others would die unless they could guide them into deeper water.

Sarmiento said the whales could be reacting to a “heat wave or disturbance at sea,” adding dolphins, which are mammals, have ears that are sensitive to large changes in pressure underwater, he said.

“If their eardrums are damaged they become disorientated and they float up to the surface,” he added.

Authorities said they had managed to guide most of the dolphins back into deeper water and away from the shore.

Provincial veterinarian Alberto Venturina said samples had been taken from two of the dead dolphins, which had shown they were both female and that one of them was pregnant.

He said he could not say why they beached themselves although he noted that two had water in their lungs, indicating that they had drowned. The pregnant dolphin had been found with its tail tangled in a fishing net, Venturina added.

“It’s possible that they got lost. They came from the north and were headed toward the South China Sea,” he said.

The two animals were identified as melon-headed dolphins, weighing about 250 to 300 kilograms, said Venturina.
--The manila times With AFP report

Military-sonar spooked in Hawaii,spear-gunned in the Visayas, electra dolphins a threatened species
Manila Times 15 Feb 09;

THERE are now only about 50,000 electra dolphins or melon-headed whales (Peponocephala electra) worldwide.

They are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) list of threatened species.

Threats that could cause widespread declines include lack of food due to declining small-fish populations and competition with local fishery as well as high levels of man-made sound, especially military sonar and seismic surveys.

An anomalous movement of melon-headed whales into a bay in Hawaii was associated with military sonar, and the frequency of mass stranding events for this species has increased in the last 30 years.

Although the impact is unclear, global climate change on the marine environment may also be a factor.

Electras and/or melon-headed whales belong to the same cetacean family that also includes porpoises.

They are common in tropical and subtropical oceans such as in Asia, from Bangladesh to the Philippines to Vietnam. They are regularly seen in some areas of its range, such as around Hawaii and archipelagos in the western tropical Pacific as well as parts of the Philippines, such as the eastern Sulu Sea.

Little is known of its diet except that it feeds on squid, shrimp and small fish.

Although no regular, large hunts are known, it is fished occasionally near the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, in Taiwan, in the Japanese dolphin fishery and the well-established harpoon fishery for sperm whales near Lamalera, Indonesia.

Small-boat fishermen occasionally harpoon or net melon-headed whales in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. In central and southern Visayas, northern Mindanao and Palawan, they are killed by rubber-powered spear guns for bait or human consumption, mostly during the inter-monsoonal period of February to May.

Throughout the tropics, small numbers are captured in the purse-seine fishery for yellowfin tuna, especially in eastern tropical Pacific countries like the Philippines.

Considering that bycatch is a large and growing problem in Asia, low numbers reported may be misleading.

SOURCE: International Union for Conservation of Nature

Stranded dolphins just visiting apex of Earth’s Coral Triangle
Paul M. Icamina, Manila Times 15 Feb 09;

THE Ubians of Mindanao have so many things in common with the clown triggerfish, green turtle, humpback whale and the manta ray.

They all live in the Philippines, which sits at the apex of the earth’s Coral Triangle.

The Coral Triangle covers 6.5-million square kilometers, or almost half the size of the United States, that is home to 3,000 fish species, including whale sharks (the world’s largest) and the coelacanth that predates dinosaurs—and over 600 reef-building corals, 75 per cent of all species known worldwide.

The Coral Triangle covers the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. It is listed by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) as one of the world’s priority conservation areas.

Most people in the Coral Triangle live on the shores, in cultures in balance with nature, with unrivaled skills in boat building and nautical navigation.

Like the Ubians, a nomadic, seafaring people, depending on the sea for trade and subsistence fishing. They reside on and around islands in Mindanao, as well as around Kudat and Semporna in Sabah, Malaysia.

Often living in houses erected on stilts, Ubians travel by handmade canoes where they also live when they are not in sea cucumber cultivation, boat-making and civil service.

In Mindanao, the Ubians are the largest group of the Bajau, the original Sea Gypsies.

They live on many islands of the Philippines and its seas, as well as sizable minorities living around the towns of Kudat and Semporna in Sabah, Malaysia. They have been driven by conflict to Sabah where they are the second largest ethnic group, and have migrated as far as Sulawesi and Kalimantan in Indonesia.

Wildlife

A myriad of life exists in the rich triangle, like the bottlenose dolphins, relatives of the Electra dolphins stranded in Bataan this week.

Bottlenose dolphins have been trained by military groups for tasks such as locating sea mines or detecting and marking enemy divers. In some areas they cooperate with humans by driving fish towards fishermen and eating the fish that escape the fishermen’s nets.

Bottlenose dolphins can live for more than 40 years but they are hunted for food or killed as a bycatch of tuna fishing.

The clown triggerfish is rare and most commonly found around coral reefs. Because of its attractive colors, it is one of the most highly prized aquarium fish.

Then there is the green turtle, about 100,000 of which are killed in the Indo-Australian archipelago each year. It is threatened by over-harvesting of both eggs and meat, and from accidental mortality in the nets and long-lines of fishing fleets.

The humphead wrasse is one of the largest coral reef fishes. It is highly vulnerable to over-exploitation because of its natural rarity, late maturity, longevity, predictable spawning sites and hermaphroditism (the fish is born as one sex and changes into the other sex later in its life).

Only the male humpback whale produces the long, loud, complex “songs” for which it is famous. Each song typically lasts from 10 to 20 minutes and may be repeated for more than 24 hours.

Humpback whales of the North Atlantic sing the same song, and those of the North Pacific sing a different one. Each population’s song changes slowly over a period of years—never returning to the same sequence of notes.

The manta ray is the largest of the rays, with the largest more than 25 feet across and weighing 2,300 kilograms. To swim better through the ocean, they have a diamond shaped body with pectoral fins as graceful “wings.”

This summer, SeaWorld Orlando will debut its Manta, a flying roller coaster themed to resemble the manta ray.

Then there is the dugong, which is referred to in the Bible by the phrase “sea cow” in several places in Exodus (25:5 & 26:14) and in Numbers. Its hide may have been used in the construction of the Tabernacle, if the dugong indeed corresponds to the Biblical animal tachash.

“Dugong” comes from Tagalog, in turn adopted from the Malay “duyung,” both meaning “lady of the sea.”

In the Philippines, it is mostly found in Palawan, Romblon and Guimaras. It is a large marine mammal hunted for thousands of years, often for its meat and oil, and is close to extinction.

When seen from above, the top half of a dugong appears like that of a woman. Coupled with the tail fin, mariners often mistook it for an aquatic human, probably the origin of the mermaid myth.