The Gentle "Butandings" of Oslob

We come to a place where there's an ongoing debate regarding the gentle giants of the waters in southern Cebu - the Whale Sharks or "butandings" of Oslob.

Courtesy of Rudy Balbuena

 

Oslob is located 117 kilometers southeast of Cebu City.

Courtesy of Rudy Balbuena

It is now known as the place where people come to swim with and take selfies with the whale sharks that prowl around the waters.

A debate among the "environmentalists" and the locals rages, surrounding the matter of continuing this beneficial relationship between the community of Oslob and these large sea creatures, as it is being alleged that maintaining this symbiotic relationship of "feeding" these animals creates an unnatural and "unhealthy" dependency on humans for their food.

What most of the people from out of town don't know is that it's been going on for over thirty years already.

The practice began when fishermen began dropping "uyap" or krill into the waters to attract fishes to catch, sometime in the late 70's.  To the fishermen's surprise, the large fishes began to appear, and regularly - to wait for the fishermen to come and drop their bait into the water.

In recent years, the municipality of Oslob took a proactive role to protect the marine life in the area and declared it a marine sanctuary - and educated the fisherfolk in the area about the benefits of protecting the marine life in the area instead of recklessly pillaging their aquatic resources.

It worked.

To boatmen who ferry scuba divers to the area (paying a fee of 600 pesos per diver) and snorkelers(400 pesos per), they earn more by taking them out on their outrigger boats than if they would had they remained marginalized fishermen, resorting to dynamite or cyanide fishing in extreme cases just to gather enough to sell in the market at less than viable prices.

 

Courtesy of Rudy Balbuena

The villagers have realized this already. The boatmen begin their services early in the morning, and limit the whale shark visits to sometime around noon, to allow the fish to revert back to the natural habitat and do what they normally do.  Villagers nearby offer a place to eat, and sell token souvenirs to visiting tourists who have come to visit the playful sea creatures.

The disturbing point in all this, is that the ones who do not live in Oslob want this practice stopped - not realizing that they will disrupt a viable livelihood in this community that really does not harm the whale sharks.  Other places have positioned themselves as places where whale sharks traverse their waters - not saying that it sometimes takes three hours on a boat ride and they don't get to sight even one shark.

In Oslob, all you need to do is ask a boatman and he'll take you right to the spot and you will see two or three, guaranteed. Somewhere farther out, and you get to see the larger ones underwater.

Courtesy of Rudy Balbuena

Back in the 1980's, I used to live a double life as a college student and a dive guide to earn my leisure money while enjoying the sights underwater.  I was part of a group of divers and instructors at that time that explored the southern Central Visayas divesites to show visiting diving groups the places where the rich marine life was abundant.  One of them - a very good friend and one of the three celebrated dive instructors at that time - gave me these captivating photos.
 

I am grateful to my good friend and dive mentor, Rudy Balbuena, Dive Instructor and aquatic resources protection advocate, who continues diving up to today -  for providing these photos of the gentle "butandings" that are the main reason why tourists come to Oslob.  In a later post, I intend to narrate the story of these divers and what we referred to as the "Bahamas" life, in between dives at the places where we all worked and played as dive guides.