The fate of dolphins and whales in the Visayas seas, including Bohol, is worth watching as these marine mammals are caught by fishing gear and slaughtered by fishermen at sea.
This appears to be the grim set-up of the marine mammals plying at Bohol sea particularly in the northern part of Mindanao sea, which surfaced during the two-day training workshop on Marine Mammals Conservation and Stranding Response held on May 14-15, 2009 at Bohol Agricultural Promotion Center in this city.
“In most cases dolphins are caught in nets and they are chopped into pieces,†said Lemnuel V. Aregones, a doctor of philosophy and assistant professor, Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.
Aragones, who works with monitoring of these mammals in Tañon Strait (between Cebu and Negros Oriental for many years) and elsewhere also revealed that regions 6, 7, and 8 in the Visayas “are consuming dolphins and whales.â€
This situation is aggravated by the fact that a lot of these cetaceans are either beached (dead on shore) or merely stranded (alive).
Based on the studies, there have been 28 species of marine mammals in the Philippines, or about 1/3 of the world’s more than 70 known species. Twenty six of these are cetaceans (19 small, 7 large; 20 toothed whales and dolphins (odontocetes) and 6 baleen whales (mysticetes).
Most of these species are also spotted in Bohol seas, including the blue whale, the largest animal on earth with more than 30 meters in length.
The “hot spot†tag for Bohol boosts the multi-million tourism on whale-dolphin watching along the seas off Pamilacan island.
Mayor Alvin Uy of Baclayon town, where the island belongs, said that despite these incidents more visitors flock the island for whale-watching. - The Bohol Chronicle
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