I first visited Donsol in 2005, to snorkel with whale sharks
there. The locals call these sharks
butanding. On the first day, I was
surprised as the 6 swimmers in my boat ended the day having snorkeled with 4 or
5 different butanding. We disagreed
about one whale shark, whether it was the same as the first one we had been in
the water with.
My second day on the water was a repeat performance, with
many whale sharks being seen and 3 or 4 that we swam with during our 3 hour
boat trip. We passed other butanding who
were either going away from us or who were already “taken” by another boat.
Last year I heard some rumors that the whale sharks had not
returned as usual. But this was
something nobody wanted to talk much about.
I took no groups there either of the last two years so I did not really
have first hand knowledge.
In the Philippine newspaper, the Inquirer, an article just a
few days ago finally confirmed those rumors.
As I write this it is July 26 and the whale shark
(butanding) tourist season in the Philippines has mostly come to an end. Tourist income is reported by the Philippine
Inquirer to be down by 50% from around 4 million pesos two years ago to only 2
million so far this year.
Donsol is a small town of 47,000 located in a distant and
relatively undeveloped region. The
community is surely feeling the pain of losing half their income.
There were only two butanding spotted during a substantial
part of this snorkeling season and last year was similar. The drop in whale
sharks to swim with obviously led to the drop in tourists coming to Donsol to
snorkel alongside whale sharks.
Why are most of the whale sharks gone? The number one most likely cause is pollution
diminishing the available plankton supply near to shore, forcing the butanding
to feed further offshore. Everywhere I
travel in the Philippines, I see housing built out over rivers, no provisions
for sewage. The rivers are all polluted
here without exception, some to the stage of being nothing more than black,
oily, trash clogged breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease.
Malapascua Island where I live in a simple bamboo hut or
bahay kubo as it is called here, has no rivers.
This small island of about 6 square miles has only 3,000 inhabitants. There are no rivers, so sewage and most trash
disposed of in a sanitary way. The ocean
is water is clean and still provides a great place to dive.
If Donsol wants its tourist industry to recover, the local
government needs to act immediately to clean up the rivers that flow into the
ocean in the area the butanding normally congregate to feed. When the sharks do return, the tourism
officials then need to more closely regulate the snorkeling encounters. It is not the tourists’ actions that may place
stress on the whale sharks, but the unrestrained large flow of boats and
swimmers.
There is speculation in the Inquirer news article that the
40 permitted boats carrying up to 6 passengers each that ply the shore near
Donsol could be responsible by causing stress upon the feeding animals. Swimming tourists and poorly captained boats
frequently cross too close in front of feeding whale sharks, causing them to
turn or change direction and disrupting their normally calm feeding methods.
In an effort to satisfy all comers, the number of boats that
go out from the Donsol boat office is limited primarily by the number of
tourists who arrive wanting to go out on the boats. A more orderly and restrictive schedule needs
to be developed. A schedule plan that places
less pressure on the animals. Perhaps
limiting the number of boats allowed out with snorkelers to 6 or 8 boats at any
time would help reduce the interference and stress upon the feeding butanding.
This might mean that some tourists who arrive without
reservations would be forced to wait an extra day. Or they might only get to go out in the
afternoon, missing the best morning snorkel time. This seems like a small price to pay compared
to chasing the animals away from their normal feeding area and thus out of
reach of the boats.
I suspect the economic pressures upon the local government
will divert attention away from these two stressors – pollution and stress from
too many boats. Rather I imagine all
entities involved will erroneously jump on the Global Warming bandwagon. The Inquirer article has paved the way. It will be easy and politically correct right
now to blame all the ills of the environment upon Global Warming. But it is not an accurate assessment of what
is really happening at this moment.
The Inquirer listed warming water due to Global Warming as
the most likely cause of the whale sharks changing their long held feeding
grounds. But the water temps at 28 to 29 degrees Celsius (about 84 Fahrenheit)
are nearly perfect for whale sharks.
It has been my experience with whale sharks at various
locations around the world over the last 10 years that when the water
temperature drops below 80 degrees F. the whale sharks become difficult to
find. When I do find them in cooler
water they are swimming faster and frequently deeper, making it almost
impossible to have an excellent snorkeling encounter with one of them.
I think global warming is being blamed for too many bad
environmental events that are not caused by this phenomenon. This current situation in Donsol is a prime
example of the Global Warming alarm misdirecting attention from more immediate
and very real concerns.
