Jarius Bondoc Philippinr Star page 13
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Rey Manalo, Bantay-Dagat (Bay Watch) head in Tingloy, Batangas, is pulling our leg. Of the 18-foot whale shark that beached on the isle Tuesday with no fins and tail, he claims that fishermen accidentally netted it. “They must have tried to rescue the creature with their bare hands, but could not do so without cutting off its fins and tail,” Manalo was quoted as saying.
Phooey! It would be infinitely easier to snip the net than neatly saw off the giant fish’s appendages, which was how it looked. The butanding intentionally was butchered for money, then left to drown, starve or bleed to death. Manalo is trying to fool the public. Was he sleeping on the job, or does he know who the poachers are? Any which way, he must be fired by the mayor of Tingloy. If the latter loves his constituents, he must protect their emergent ecotourism earner of butanding-watching. If he doesn’t, even the butanding-caring people of Donsol, Sorsogon, might suffer bad publicity from this environment crime.
WWF-Philippines gathered these details: Sunday the Bantay-Dagat of adjacent Mabini shooed away from municipal waters a Lemery-based commercial fishing vessel. Monday dusk the intruder was spotted lurking in Tingloy territory. Tuesday dawn the whale shark beached, hardly breathing. Vets deduce that the poachers took all night to merrily knife away the creature’s fins and tail. It was the Bantay-Dagat of Mabini that reported the crime, not Manalo’s unit in Tingloy. WWF has put up a P100,000-reward for info that can lead to the criminals’ arrest.
Ironically this happened only a week after the Philippines hosted a 50-nation conference to protect seven threatened shark species, including the butanding. Twelve participants, led by RP, signed a shark conservation protocol that bans “shark finning,” or harvesting appendages for the soup delicacy."
