Is that a shark in your soup?

Dr. AA Yaptinchay is a veterinarian but rather than treat dogs and cats, he focused on the marine species sector of living things. He focused on the study of endangered marine wildlife like dugong, marine turtles, cetaceans and sharks. He is a strong advocate for non-consumptive utilization of marine wildlife. In other words, please do not consume shark’s fin soup, shark meat and even manta ray meat. These are long-lived and threatened species and we need people like him to preserve the ecosystem of marine life.

I met Dr. AA as we were recruited into the Society for Sustainable Tourism more than a decade ago by Susan Santos de Cardenas, who brought back her experience from Inkaterra in Peru to Coron, Palawan, for starters. Years later Dr. AA and I would again meet at conservation events, he being the founder of Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines.

When I visited Banwa island, I again heard Dr. AA’s name, as Banwa is a certified safe area for rays and sharks or what they call ISRA. His advocacy is for the non-consumptive utilization of sharks and rays and cetaceans. Cetaceans comprise all the marine mammals like whales, dolphins and porpoises. Non-consumptive simply means “don’t eat these creatures.” But due to common practices of fisherfolk to take anything from the sea, the meats of these endangered species sometimes end up in local dishes like kinunot, a local dish that calls for fish cooked in coconut milk (possibly of Bicol origin). Dr. AA laments the fact that many fisherfolk are driven to consumptive practices because of abject poverty and difficulty in finding food. If you Google the word kinunot, it does call for shark or ray meat!

He has three tips to share as he mentioned in our podcast Good and Green:

Let them roam their habitat freely. Respect their habitat and give them space. There are laws on distances we need to keep between humans and turtles, for example. Nesting turtles must be left alone and we must stay at least 10 meters away from them. We must also keep a distance between us and butandings or whale sharks.

Remove the threats to these species. This includes fishing nets and other fishing gear that may harm them. This includes use of plastic, as any plastic ingested by these creatures can cause health issues.

Be aware. Education is important, especially for divers and others who interact with life under water. The cetaceans have their own ecosystem and we must know how to live with them. They are to be admired from afar as a tourist attraction but must be kept away from humans who plan to catch them.

Part of the education about marine life is how quickly or how slowly fish populations reproduce. The rays, for example, reproduce very slowly and if we consume them, their populations may decline fast and may disappear altogether. There goes biodiversity!

Other endangered protected species that are still eaten are: wild boar, deer (tapang usa), python (sawa), monitor lizard (bayawak), sharks, rays, giant clams and pawikan eggs.

Wildlife, Dr. AA reminds us, is limited or are finite resources. They are part of an ecosystem and they preserve biodiversity. Responsible consumption means we have to know what is protected and avoid consuming them.

Even the harvest of blue swimming crabs is accidentally catching or killing Irrawaddy dolphins in Central Visayas and Palawan. Because of this, we are now banned from exporting blue crabs to the US due to news of dolphin deaths.

We must continuously teach fisherfolk and coastal dwellers to choose other kinds of food – maybe grow vegetables and harvest seaweeds and consume only fast-reproducing fish and low chain food species.

Another term I learned about is by-catch. When nets are used, even juvenile fish get caught and this again removes from the future population of fish for years to come. Nets are also dangerous for cetaceans as they could get entangled and get caught with these kinds of fishing methods.

We must refrain from consumption of exotic cuisine like shark’s fin soup or even the more common kinunot unless it uses common fish and not rays. I remember buntot pagi (or tail of a manta ray) being served in some communities. That has got to stop and it starts with consumer demand. If we consumers know better, the fisherfolk will stop harvesting the endangered species.

In the meantime, we can help advocates like Dr. AA who has dedicated over 30 years to the preservation of marine species by being responsible consumers. We can also help by inspiring the youth to be marine scientists and conservationists. Scuba divers who are in the sport can help not just with coastal cleanups but with educating coastal communities about alternative sources of income. While scuba diving is a sport, divers are the best people to tell us about life under water, and how to best live with these creatures. Let us convince our sport divers to use their skills to help us save marine life.

Meantime, Dr. AA, who probably knows all the members of the “conservation community” already, is asking us to be more aware about their advocacy. If we like fish, and if we like eating fish, we have to know what is safe to eat and what we should not eat or avoid consuming. Crabs, which is one of my favorites, will have to be from sustainable sources.

I love fish, especially deep-sea fish, hopefully caught using safer methods. I love sardines and hasa-hasa. My parents, because we lived near Navotas and Malabon growing up, taught us how to eat bisugo, talimusak and other species I no longer see much of. Even our bangus (milkfish) came from brackish waters and not from fresh water ponds. Fish is good and healthy to eat but these days, we have to watch what we eat and make sure what is on our plate is not endangered.

Let us all help Dr. AA and his group spread the advocacy of non-consumption of endangered fish, especially sharks and rays.