09
Mar 2009 - The shock discovery in the Philippines
of a tiny whale shark – possibly the smallest
of its kind ever recorded – has given scientists
new insight into the breeding behavior of
these mysterious fish.
Scientists from WWF-Philippines,
working with local police and government
officials, freed a 38 cm whale shark over
the weekend captured by a fisherman in the
Philippines province of Sorsogon, near the
coastal town of Donsol, a hub where whale
sharks congregate.
The rescued shark was
the smallest whale shark ever recorded in
the Philippines, and possibly the smallest
ever found in the world.
The whale shark is the
world’s largest living fish, measuring up
to more than 12 meters and weighing up to
almost 14 tons, making the weekend encounter
by scientists with the miniscule captive
whale shark a unique opportunity to learn
more about the huge fish species.
Despite all the ongoing
research on whale sharks, little is known
about where they breed or give birth.
Because of its small
size, the whale shark found in the Sorsogon
Province was likely born near the area.
This indicates that the Philippines – at
the apex of the Coral Triangle – likely
is one of the places where these giants
of the sea are born, according to WWF-Philippines.
For many years, scientists
thought that the Sorsogon coastline was
merely one of many stops along the global
network of marine highways traveled by whale
sharks. The recent discovery of the small
whale shark could change that long-held
belief and instead establish the coastline
as a birthing area for the sharks.
After being tipped off
that a whale shark had been caught to be
sold, researchers from WWF-Philippines alerted
local authorities and together they located
and freed the shark, which the fisherman
had restrained with a rope tied around its
tail.
The rescuers then checked
to make sure the shark had not been injured,
and documented and measured it, before transferring
it into a large, water-filled plastic bag
to allow it to swim freely prior to its
release. They eventually took the shark
out to deeper water, where it was less likely
to get entangled in a fish net, and set
it free.
Although listed under
Appendix II of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES), a status which strictly
regulates the trade of the species based
on quotas and permits to prevent their unsustainable
use, whale sharks continue to be harvested
for a variety of products, including their
liver oil and fins.
The waters around Donsol
are part of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas ecoregion,
one of WWF's Global 200 ecoregions — a science-based
global ranking of the world's most biologically
outstanding habitats and the regions on
which WWF concentrates its efforts. The
also make up part of the Coral Triangle,
a major area of marine biodiversity.
Leaders of the six nations
that make up the Coral Triangle – Philippines,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon
Islands and Timor Leste –will meet on May
15 in Manado, Indonesia for the World Oceans
Conference where they will announce a comprehensive
set of actions to protect ecosystems and
food security in the region.
+ More
Endangered groupers
to stay off dining plates under Philippines
deal
06 Mar 2009 Filipino
fishermen and fish traders have signed off
on a plan to save grouper stocks in the
Coral Triangle by keeping more than a million
kilos of the endangered fish off restaurant
dinner plates annually across Asia.
The grouper is Asia’s
most in-demand reef fish and considered
a delicacy with high-end diners in places
such as Hong Kong and Singapore.
But decades of highly
unregulated cyanide and dynamite fishing,
and a rising trend of targeting vulnerable
spawning areas to feed the live reef fish
trade, are threatening wild grouper stocks
in the Philippines province of Palawan with
total collapse.
The IUCN recently assessed
all 161 species of grouper and categorized
twenty grouper species as threatened with
extinction, including the squaretail coral
grouper and humpback grouper, which are
found throughout the Coral Triangle and
are a popular luxury live food in Asian
seafood restaurants.
To help avoid the total
collapse of grouper stocks near the Philippines
island of Palawan, the Palawan Council for
Sustainable Development, the Palawan Provincial
Government and WWF staged a sustainable
live reef fish summit in Palawan last month
to help locals develop their own solutions
– including practical accreditation processes,
quotas, levies, surveillance and monitoring
systems.
Palawan and its territorial
waters host some of the most productive
yet exploited fishing grounds in the Coral
Triangle – the world's centre for marine
biodiversity. Groupers make up a large part
of the Coral Triangle’s live fish trade.
At the summit held at
Palawan’s State University, fishermen and
traders pledged to reduce Palawan's annual
grouper haul by more than 25 percent. They
agreed to reduce the annual catch of 700
metric tons to 516 metric tons – keeping
roughly 1.5 million kilograms of Coral Triangle
grouper in the ocean every year.
Beginning in the 1970s,
exports of live grouper, snapper and wrasse
from the region have made their way to the
kitchens and live fish tanks across Asia
– particularly Hong Kong, Singapore and
mainland China.
The Philippines is the
biggest supplier of the most high value
live reef fish, coral trout, to those Asian
seafood hubs, and the province of Palawan
supplies around 60 per cent of all Philippines
fish. The highly unregulated live reef fish
business is estimated to bring in more than
$US100 million dollars annually to fishing
communities on the island, making the recent
agreement that much more of a watershed
moment in conservation.
“The annual grouper
yield is immense – last year local fishermen
reeled in over 700 metric tones. Unfortunately
we’ve estimated the sustainable yield to
be no more than 140 metric tonnes – meaning
the yearly take is five times more than
what can be harvested,” said Dr. Geoffrey
Muldoon, Live Reef Fish Strategy Leader
for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program.
Fishermen and fish traders
made the agreement during the Live Reef
Fish Summit held at Palawan State University
on 23 Feb. The summit was organized by the
PCSD, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources
(BFAR), the Palawan Provincial Government
and WWF to unify local government units,
fishermen and traders in discussing sustainable
management practices for their fishing trade.
“Local communities are
delivery systems for conservation. The stakeholders
of Palawan have created a watershed moment.
The agreements arrived at today have been
based on a recognition of the realities
of overfishing, human footprint and climate
change. In a sense, this is true transformation,”
WWF Vice-Chairman and CEO Lory Tan said.
The decision comes as
leaders of the six nations that make up
the Coral Triangle – Philippines, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands
and Timor Leste – prepare to gather in Manado,
Indonesia in May for the World Oceans Conference
where they will announce a comprehensive
set of actions to protect ecosystems and
food security in the region.
