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Thursday, January 15, 2004
21-ft dolphin beached at Matina Aplaya, dies
By Stella A. Estremera
DAVAO -- A 20.88-foot female bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), probably the biggest recorded bottlenose dolphin ever, was beached on the shores of Matina Aplaya at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
Relentless efforts by residents to push it back to the sea proved futile and it died several hours later. The dolphin, better known as "lumod", was described to be a full adult.
It was earlier measured at 229 inches or 19.08 feet while still in the water, but was officially tagged at 20.88-feet after it was towed to the Davao Fishport in Daliao, Toril where its remains were blast frozen by the Polar Bear freezing company, said City Councilor Leonardo Avila III, who was among those who helped push the dolphin as far back into the waters that night.
Its girth (circumference at its widest) was measured at 108 inches (9 feet), while its caudal fin (the hindmost fin) was measured at 54 inches (4.5 feet). Its snout measured one foot.
In "A Field Guide to Whales and Dolphins in the Philippines", a book by
Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan, it said a bottlenose dolphins can grow between 10 to 13 feet.
Internet entries on bottlenose dolphins state the same that bottlenoses grow up to around 4 meters and weigh up to 350 kilos or a third of a ton. Bottlenose dolphins live up to 35 years during which the females give birth to just around one dozen babies.
"Hindi lang ito basta mature, adult na talaga at matanda na kaya siguro nag-beach na siyang sadya," veterinarian My Ladyrose Domingo said.
Domingo explained that dolphins and whales find their final resting place where they beach themselves.
The dolphin chose to beach in a densely populated area and where the beach was heavily silted, it practically felt like deep, sticky mud with a strong stench of sewage.
First recorded
This is the first recorded bottlenose dolphin in Davao City, although
Matina Aplaya residents say this is not the first time a dolphin was beached in their waters.
Bottlenose dolphins have been sighted in Coron, Linapacan, Busuanga,
Culion, Calauit, El Nido and Taytay, Ulugan Bay, and Brooke's Point in
Palawan, San Jose in Mindoro, Batangas Bay, Verde Island, Passage,
Balicasag, Pamilacan, Camiguin, and southern tips of Cebu and Negros near Capul and Naranjo Islands.
Menfolk of Matina Aplaya just beside the Maligaya Taxi compound gathered around the dolphin in a bid to return it to the waters, having beached itself just around ten meters from the shore at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
They managed to push it off substantially, but the dolphin thwarted them all and wriggled back to where it was.
This happened several times, its caudal fin splashing heavily silted sand and mud on the people around it.
The menfolk managed to push it to more than a hundred meters from the shore by around 12 midnight, but at that time, the tide has already turned and water was just at mid-thigh level, no amount of pushing and pulling could move it. By 1 a.m., water has gone down to just above the ankle and the dolphin was no longer moving.
Residents said the tide was expected to come in between 7:30 to 9 a.m.
Blast-frozen
On Wednesday morning, Avila said, they finally decided to have the dead dolphin towed toward the fishport for blast fishing. They managed to do this with the help of the maritime police who lent their boat.
The carcass had to be carried out of the water with a huge crane before its guts were taken out and separately blast-frozen.
There was no weighing scale big enough to measure it, but fishport regulars estimate it to be between 2 to 3 tons.
Largest?
The largest dolphin is actually the killer whale or orca (Orcinus orca).
Adult orcas grow up to 18-32 feet and weigh from 3 to 9 tons.
At 20.88 feet, the Matina Aplaya dolphin can equal a number of orcas.
"This could be the biggest recorded in the world and it was found in Matina Aplaya," Avila said.
"This just goes to show that Davao Gulf is really rich in resources and there is a lot to be done to conserve these."
The third
Residents said this is the third dolphin beached in their area, but this was the biggest.
The last one was sometime in the 1990s, they said, and the first one was sometime in 1980s.
A woman said they were first alerted to the dolphin by a fisherman-neighbor, Rolando Ancajas, who they saw was running toward their neighborhood shouting, "Naay dakong iho (There's a big shark)!"
The group who were mingling around waiting for their menfolk to finally call it a day also said that earlier that morning, their fishermen-neighbors brought in a huge catch of more than 100 kilos of "tamban."
They viewed this as the dolphin's last gift to them.
(January 15, 2004 issue)
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