Puzzling over whale sharks

I can hear my breath whooshing through the snorkel that is planted firmly in my mouth.  I’ve just swam my hardest over swell, against a current, and through some stinging plankton to reach a group of boats moored in two lines offshore.  Whoosh, whoosh.  I catch my breath and survey the scene.  There are brightly painted bancas (local boats) everywhere.  Inside them, tottering in the swell, are scores of tourists clad in fluorescent orange life jackets.  Through the mob comes a smaller boat with only one person in it- it’s a feeding boat.  I dip my masked face underwater to see this little boat being followed by an enormous polka-dotted fish.  It’s a whale shark- the largest fish in the world- and right now it’s following this boat as if it was a trained show dog. 

So where am I? I am in Oslob, Cebu.  I am here for a week to help with a project that LAMAVE just began to study the newly-started whale shark interaction tourism here.  How this whale shark show began is a bit hazy, but what we know is that Oslob is an area that hosts a whale shark aggregation at certain times of the year.  Whale sharks tend to aggregate around seasonal food sources- coral spawn, crab eggs, plankton blooms.  While they are huge, they eat the tiniest of food, filtering mass quantities of water through their gills which act like baleen, sieving out the microscope chow.  Somehow the local fishermen began feeding them.  Whether it was to dissuade them away from their nets, or just to pass the time, or possibly with the hope of luring them closer to shore for tourism, I am not really sure.  But it started a few months ago (again, dates are debatable depending on who you talk to) and now business is booming.  The feeder boats dump u-yap (essentially krill) into the water and the sharks follow.  Now there are hundreds of tourists and the small community of Tan-Awan in Oslob has seen an instant boom.

 

Boats line up in the interaction zone on a busy day during Holy Week.

I will admit that my first in-water view of a whale shark isn’t quite what my naturalist-heart had  hoped for.  It isn’t some beautiful chance encounter while diving in an isolated place.  Instead, I am in the water surrounded by hundreds of people.  It’s chaos.   It doesn’t help that it’s the end of holy week, a huge week long holiday here, and local tourists are plentiful.  On my first day out, there are nearly 2000 people that come to see the butanding (tagalog for whale shark).  Most of the visitors are Philippinos.  This place hasn’t really hit the international-tourist scene yet, but I suspect it’s only time before it will.

I glance quickly at my watch and start my follow.  I am in the water to collect data; I choose one shark to shadow for 20 minutes.  Today I’ve chosen Raymond, one of the smaller sharks that frequents the area.  There are 11 different individuals that LAMAVE has id’d in the interaction zone since we started collecting info a few weeks ago, but there are 5-6 main animals that visit regularly.  Raymond is named after the two large remoras the hold tight to him.  While he is only about 3 m long, small for a whale shark, he still dwarfs me as I parallel him at a distance for the focal follow.  There are ‘guidelines’ for the tourists and boat operators, but as is often the case, they are poorly enforced and routinely broken.  The first stage of our project is to see how often these guidelines are broken and how the sharks behave during these interactions. During this follow I collect info every 5 minutes on how many people are within 5 and 10m of the shark and what the tourists are doing (free swimming, scuba diving, holding onto a boat).  I also take instantaneous data on the shark’s behaviour as well as any infractions of the rules.  It can be very hard to keep up with the shark- they are incredibly powerful animals that appear to be barely moving while jetting away from you into the current.

Many visitors don’t even get in the water (many just stay on the boats and watch from the surface), but some do.  They are currently allowing scuba diving, which normally is not allowed in many other areas where whale shark tourism happens (including other sites in the Philippines like they very well managed operations out of Donsol). There are times when I grab people by the fins, pulling them back from touching the shark, yelling that they have to stay back 5 m.  There are other times that the boats are spaced so close together that there is no way the distance guidelines can even be applied.  Many of the tour operators do their best to comply with the rules, but with so many boats, and the nature of the animals, it can be tricky.  The feeders have one goal, to keep the sharks with them and to lead them past the boats and swimmers.  There are times when a shark breaks away and the boat goes chasing after it.  Oddly, the shark often complies and rejoins the boat.  Why doesn’t it dive and leave?  In other areas where whale sharks are studied, they regularly dive away from disturbance.

Too close, a tourist nearly kicks the shark.

There is usually an enforcement ‘policeman’ present, trying to keep the order, but he is often alone and therefore ineffectual against the masses.  One good thing, all the boats are powered by paddles, so the sharks are not in danger of being hit by a propeller, at least while in the interaction zone.  We also collect data from land, monitoring the number of boats, how long they stay, and how many people are in the interaction zone at one time.  Most boats comply with their 30 minute stay time, heading back to shore twice an hour to pick up another group.

Collecting data from land.

All in all, it’s a bizarre scene and after a few days here, I still can’t say that I think feeding whale sharks is a good idea. In general, feeding wildlife is bad news.  Besides potential stresses on the animal caused by the interaction, feeding can often affect the fitness of an animal.  Oddly, the amount the sharks are fed doesn’t seem like very much compared to what a whale shark would need to sustain such a large body.  Why do they stay, I wonder? And is this feeding effecting their normal travel patterns?  Apparently whale sharks do not normally stay in this area this long.  Has the feeding enticed them to stay? At what cost?  

I am trying to stay objective though, something that is becoming easier the older I get.  I used to feel so staunchly that my ideals and beliefs when it came to conservation and wildlife management were always right. I remember distinctly the indignation and rage I felt at 23 in Nicaragua when a nesting turtle I had discovered by chance on an early morning walk had all her eggs stolen by locals just as she laid them.  I remember tearing up and pleading with the people to leave them.  I just couldn’t understand why they would do that.  Now, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t feel regret about a similar situation like that nowm just as I can’t say that I think feeding whale sharks is a smart move, but I understand so much more now that conservation is often a social science and there are so many factors that play into these situations.  You can’t just come in and say “this is bad” and try to force people to see your way.  It doesn’t work that way  and who is to say what I think is ‘right’ necessarily?  That is why I really appreciate this chance: to come into a situation, to collect some information, and then to take it back to the community, discuss and work together to try and make it better.  The municipality has welcomed our project and is willing to work with us.  The fact is this little town with little money has already started something that they see great value in.  They aren’t just going to stop because some foreign biologists tell them too.  But if we work together, if we provide objective information and suggestions, then perhaps we can make it better, for the sharks and the community involved.

Some education needed.

Something I should mention is that the people here do actually really seem to care about the sharks. There is huge value in that.  While hunting whale sharks in the Philippines is technically illegal is still does happen.  People also appear to know very little about the animals as well (like the fact that it isn’t a whale, for example) and in some areas, the animals don’t appear to command a lot of respect (as seen recently on a local video where an entangled shark was towed to shore and people ‘surfed’ on it before letting it go).  So the fact that whale sharks have become a big deal in Oslob is likely not only educating people about the animals, but also encouraging their conservation and showing value in protecting them.    The t-shirts that everyone is sporting now all say ‘Save the whale shark’.  I hope it’s true.

I’ll stop now, as this is an epic post.  Lots to mull over and another day with Raymond and co tomorrow. 

Copy of the poster we made recently to hang in the registration area to try and provide some info to tourists.