Dead ‘butanding’ in town raises questions

LUCENA CITY—An 11-ton whale shark, locally known as butanding, was found dead Monday by fishermen in waters off Mauban, Quezon, 157 km southwest of Manila.

Erly Reasonda, head of Mauban municipal environment and natural resources office, said the 27-foot long and 7-foot wide whale shark was reported by fishermen to a town employee at around 11 a.m.

“We immediately rushed to the site just a kilometer away from the town shoreline and found the huge whale shark already dead,” said Tonton Pansacola, tourism office staffer, in a phone interview.

Lawyer Sheila de Leon, executive director of Tanggol Kalikasan-Southern Tagalog (TK-ST), said she received a message in her Facebook account on Monday informing her that the whale shark was hit by a large commercial fishing boat which is banned in Lamon Bay.

She urged local officials and national government agencies to conduct an extensive investigation to find the true cause of death of the butanding, the world’s largest fish known for its gentleness.

“The local government should search for that boat and file a criminal case against its owner,” the lawyer said over the phone.

De Leon said TK-ST has been receiving reports about unlawful commercial fishing activities being rampant again in Lamon Bay.

She said, however, that the dead whale shark bore no signs of physical harm. “We found no bruises, wounds or contusions after our thorough inspection of the body” she said.

Reasonda said the whale shark was a female.

Chuckie Rivera, community relations officer of power firm Quezon Power Ltd. which owns and operates the 440-megawatt power generating plant in Mauban, said the butanding was towed by a boat to the plant’s pier yesterday.

The plant’s pier is the only facility in the area with a crane capable of hauling the whale shark out of the water.

Rivera said the whale shark’s carcass was already foul-smelling when found.

By noon yesterday, the whale shark was buried at the sanitary landfill of Mauban.

Whale sharks can grow up to 40 feet long. They feed only on planktons, acting as living filters to improve overall water quality in the seas.

Whale sharks are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as “vulnerable” to extinction and are protected by Philippine laws under Republic Act No.  8550 and Fisheries Administrative Order No. 193.