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The enormous gray whale shark glides effortlessly in
the murky waters off Donsol in Sorsogon, its distinctive pale yellow
spotted back and fins clearly visible as excited tourists prepare to
enter the water from nearby outrigger canoes.
They swim to within a few meters
of these gentle giants of the deep as their guide makes sure they
give the whale shark plenty of room to move.
The world’s largest fish, some
as big as a school bus and weighing up to 30 tons, are not
aggressive.
“But it’s advisable not to
get too close in case they decide to turn over,” Angela Quiros, a
marine biologist and one of the country’s leading experts on the
whale shark, said.
Whale sharks have been a common
site in the waters off the coastal town for as long as anyone here
can remember, feasting on the rich plankton between January and
June.
Once hunted for its soft white
meat, known throughout Southeast Asia as “tofu shark,” the whale
shark is now protected and has transformed Donsol into a major
ecotourism center.
“Since 1998 when the government
passed a law protecting the whale shark, known locally as butanding,
tourism and revenue numbers have shot up dramatically,” said local
tourism coordinator Salvador Adrao.
Last year, almost 11,000 tourists
visited Donsol, up from around 900 in 1998. Revenues from ecotourism
have risen to an estimated P12 million, from P454,875 in the same
period.
Compared with some of the more
developed areas for whale shark watching such as Ningaloo Reef off
Western Australia, Donsol is still very cheap.
“That’s why the tourists,
especially the foreigners, come to Donsol,” Adrao said.
Ten years ago environmentalists
fought a bitter campaign to end the slaughter of the whale shark,
forcing the government to pass a law protecting the creature.
“I can’t believe how this
place has changed,” said Korina Escudero, an underwater filmmaker
and one of the original campaigners for the protection of the whale
shark. The attitudes of the local people toward conservation rather
than killing have been quite extraordinary. They can see the value
in protecting these magnificent creatures. People come from all over
the world just to see and swim with them.”
Escudero said, “The publicity
we gave to the senseless slaughter just hit a chord and people
reacted. Villagers even managed to free two whale sharks that had
been tied by their tails to coconut trees as they floundered in
shallow water off a local beach.”
The freed whale sharks “are
easy to identify as they still have the rope around their tails. We
call them Big Lucky and Little Lucky,” she said.
One local fisherman remembered
the time when the butanding was considered a pest. “They would
plough through our nets driving away smaller fish. Tourism has
changed all that. Now we see the value in protecting them. Not only
Filipinos but people from around the world come to swim with these
giant fish.”
Quiros and a small team of marine
biologists and volunteers have spent more than a week photographing,
measuring and taking tissue samples from the whale sharks for
genetic analysis.
“It will help us build a better
picture of the whale shark,” said Deni Ramirez, a marine biologist
from Mexico who specializes in whale shark genetics.
The program is the first of its
kind in the Philippines and is being partly financed by Mexico-based
cement multinational CEMEX Philippines Foundation and Conservation
International.
“No one knows how long these
fish live for. Some estimates have said up to 180 years. But we just
don’t know,” Ramirez said.
Quiros said a female can carry up
to 300 eggs, each measuring up to 18 centimeters (seven inches).
When hatched, the young are 40 to 60 centimeters long.
“They hatch inside the mother
but very few survive to maturity,” said Quiros. “You very rarely
see juvenile whale sharks. I haven’t seen any here in Donsol but
the local fishermen have so we know that the young are still in the
area.”
Despite its name and size, the
whale shark is not a whale but classified in a family of its own
called Rhincodontidae. Its closest relatives are the leopard and
nurse sharks.
Romeo Trono, executive director
for Conservation International in the Philippines, said ecotourism
has helped save the whale shark from extinction but it hasn’t
stopped the killing.
“It still goes on in some parts
of the country but not to the extent it did a few decades ago, he
said. “It takes time to educate poor people that there are
alternatives to killing a species off.”
“Donsol is an example of what
can be done if a unique species is protected.”
 --AFP
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