Tag Archives: Philippines

Rare Irrawaddy dolphins discovered in the Philippines

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A pair of Irrawaddy Dolphins at play in Palawan, photo: WWF-Philippines / Mavic Matillano

From Wildlife Extra:

New population of rare Irrawaddy dolphins found in the Philippines

Irrawaddy dolphins found off the coast of the Island Palawan – by Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan / WWF

April 2013. A new population of critically-endangered Irrawaddy dolphins has been found in the Philippines by Mavic Matillano of the WWF Palawan team. Spotted by chance off Palawan – along the coastline of the West Philippine Sea – this pod of rare marine mammals, locally called Lampasut, was observed displaying typical behaviour, foraging for prey around lift net fish traps sitting approximately one kilometre offshore. Previous populations of these dolphins – gifted with features that offer the barest hint of a congenial smile – have been documented in Malampaya Sound, as well as off the island of Panay. The Quezon pod represents the fourth known group of Irrawaddy dolphins reported in the Philippines.

The Irrawaddy dolphin

The Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), is able to adapt to a wide range of salinity and is found in discontinuous subpopulations near coasts and in estuaries and rivers in regions stretching from the Bay of Bengal to New Guinea and the Philippines. Lightly coloured, Irrawaddy dolphins can appear similar to beluga in appearance. They have a blunt, rounded head, and an indistinct beak. Their dorsal fin is short, blunt and triangular. In the wild, they have been seen spitting out streams of water – a rather unique and peculiar behaviour. Contrary to what some people believe, this animal is not a true river dolphin, but an oceanic dolphin that lives in brackish water near coasts, river mouths and estuaries.

Irrawaddy dolphins enjoy the highest level of international protection. Some Irrawaddy dolphin populations are classified by the IUCN as critically endangered, including the Malampaya Sound sub-population in the Philippines. Irrawaddy dolphins are listed as vulnerable by the IUCN throughout their whole range.

The Quezon population

Matillano, a seasoned veteran of WWF’s earlier conservation work on the Irrawaddy population of Palawan’s Malampaya Sound, reported seeing at least 20 individuals in just one sighting. This is a relatively large sized pod for this uncommon species, where groups of fewer than six individuals are most common.

April 2013. In a letter to New Zealand’s Prime Minister, the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) urges the NZ government to immediately halt seismic testing in Maui’s dolphin habitat: here.

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United States navy damages Philippines coral reef

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This video is called Tubbataha Reef Philippines: Whale Shark, Tiger Shark, Whitetip Shark, Eagle Ray, Turtle!

From Wildlife Extra:

US Navy in deep water after ship hits World Heritage reef in Philippines

USS Guardian runs aground on Tubbataha Reef

January 2013. The Philippines authorities will fine the US Navy heavily after a minesweeper, USS Guardian, ran aground on a reef in a World Heritage site, Tubbatha Reef, which is rated in the top 10 dive sites in the world.

The Tubbataha Protected Area Management Board (TPAMB) has announced that it will fine the US navy for several violations of its rules, including damaging the reef. Their statement reads:

“TPAMB has a mandate to protect, preserve and promote the resources of Tubbataha Reef. In order to fulfill that mandate and uphold the rule of law, it is the TPAMB’s intention to serve the US Navy with a formal notice listing violations of the above law in the grounding incident of January 17 involving the USS Guardian.

We will ask them to take responsibility, and immediately pay the fines that can be estimated at this time.

The violations that are evident at this time, include the following:

Section 19- UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY
Section 21 – NON-PAYMENT OF CONSERVATION FEE
Section 30 – OBSTRUCTION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
Section 20 – DAMAGES TO THE REEF
Section 26G – DESTROYING RESOURCES

Subsequent to ship retrieval / and the assessment of Park damage, the TPAMB intends to serve a second formal notice of violation to the US Navy, that will quantify the estimate of destruction and the fines that must be paid.”

From INQUIRER.net in the Philippines:

With around 1,000 square meters of corals already severely damaged by the stranded United States (US) Navy Ship in Tubbataha Reef, authorities are planning to use a crane to lift the ship instead of dragging it so as to avoid further damages.

Researchers discover how new corals species form in the ocean: here.

Scientists Use Antacid To Help Measure The Rate Of Reef Growth: here.

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Philippines endangered reptiles

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Philippine cobra

From the Philippine Star:

Phl cobra, 12 other reptiles on endangered list

By Michael Punongbayan

Updated December 31, 2012 – 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine cobra and 12 other reptiles have joined the country’s official list of threatened species, according to former senator Juan Miguel Zubiri.

Zubiri, former chairman of the Senate environment and natural resources committee and convenor of Pilipinas Ecowarriors, yesterday named the 12 other newly threatened reptiles as the Loggerhead turtle, Southeast Asian box turtle, Spiny terrapin, South-east Philippine spitting cobra (Naja samarensis), Equatorial spitting cobra, King cobra (Ophiophagus hannah), Southeast Asian softshell turtle, Batanes pit viper, Panay monitor lizard and three subspecies of the Malay monitor lizard.

The Philippine cobra was previously categorized only as near threatened but the snake’s decline in population led to the downgrading of its conservation status to threatened-endangered.

A highly venomous burly snake averaging a meter in length, the Philippine cobra (Naja philippinensis) thrives in low-lying plains, from thick jungles and forested areas to open fields and grasslands.

The reptile preys mostly on small rodents and frogs and occasionally, other snakes, lizards and birds. Its predators include humans, birds of prey, the king cobra, and the mongoose.

Zubiri said the species are tagged threatened once their habitats have suffered extreme depletion and their populations have fallen to a level below which the species or subspecies will be totally extinct.

He explained that threatened species are further sub-classified either as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered.

Zubiri said vulnerable species are under threat from serious adverse factors all over their range and are believed likely to drop to the endangered category in the near future.

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Rare whale beaches in Philippines

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The beached whale, photo Darrel Blatchley

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network:

Rare whale beaches in Philippines, dies

Sunday, Dec 23, 2012

DAVAO CITY – A “super rare” ginkgo-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon ginkgodens) beached in Maco, Compostela Valley, on Wednesday but later died due to its failure to digest garbage and other debris it had eaten, a conservationist here said on Saturday.

Darrel Blatchley, an Idaho native who had settled here and founded D’Bone Collector Museum, said villagers discovered the 16-feet long “super rare whale” around 2 a.m.

“But about 10 in the morning, the whale died,” Blatchley told the Inquirer.

He said the whale, which has been transported to the D’Bone museum here for necropsy (an autopsy performed on animals), weighed about 800 kilograms.

“The whale died of indigestion. It has garbage debris in its stomach when we did the necropsy,” Blatchley said.

Blatchley said the whale retrieved in Maco was only the second of its kind seen in the Philippines since 1957.

In fact, it is so rare that there are only a few of such whales discovered around the world.

There is a little known fact about the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, which is among the 21 species of beaked, medium-sized whales with distinctive, long and narrow beaks and dorsal fins near the tail, but it has been spotted in areas around the Pacific and Eastern Indian Oceans, he said.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said data on ginkgo-toothed beaked whale was scarce.

“Very little is known about this whale. It is presumed to have food habits like those of other beaked whales and probably subsists on squid and open-water fishes,” FAO said.

“It is a fairly typical-looking species but is notable for the males not having any scarring,” FAO said, adding that the mammal was named for the unusual shape of its dual teeth, which is similar to the leaf of the ginkgo biloba plant.

This type of whale, FAO said, can grow up to 4.9 meters long from its birth length of 2.4 meters.

Since its discovery in the 1950s, there were only about 20 beachings reported off the coasts of Japan, the Galapagos Islands, California, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Maldives, FAO said.

Some fishermen off the coast of Japan also reported limited sightings of the whale, which was why it was difficult to estimate its population in the wild, it added.

Because it is super rare, the ginkgo-toothed beaked whale is covered by the Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation of Cetaceans and Their Habitats in the Pacific Islands Region, which was pushed by the Convention on Migratory Species and was signed in 1996 by at least 15 countries, including the United States.

The Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) even put the whale on its Red List.

“Until the species can be reliably identified at sea, its true distribution will probably remain unknown,” the IUCN said.

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