Batangueños learn to rescue whales, dolphins

MANILA, Philippines - Swimming at the beach, you notice something huge thrashing in the water. Panic vanishes as you realize it is a whale, stranded by the tide. What do you do? 

To address rising incidents of whale and dolphin strandings, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines) recently conducted a two-day cetacean stranding rescue workshop at Hamilo Coast in Nasugbu, Batangas.

Over 40 staff and officers from Hamilo Coast underwent classroom and field sessions on cetacean biology, identification, threats, conservation and actual rescue techniques. 

“Few Filipinos realize that whales are found right here in the Philippines,” explains WWF-Philippines Hamilo Coast project manager Paolo Pagaduan. “Training local residents to rescue cetaceans far more than ensures the safety of stranded whales and dolphins – it cultivates their natural sense of stewardship.”  

Cetaceans (seh-tay-shuns) include all whale, dolphin and porpoise species, divided by type: Odontocetes or toothed whales feed primarily on fish and squid. Mysticetes or baleen whales have fringed strips of hair-like plates in place of teeth and feed primarily on plankton, krill and tiny fish. Twenty eight – a full third of all known species – have been recorded in Philippine waters as of 2012.

Hamilo Coast has since 2007 been working closely with WWF to restore and protect the degraded coastlines and marine resources of Nasugbu, Batangas. The 8,000-hectare eco-tourism project has fused tourism with sustainable land development by balancing conservation and land conversion.