Liloan Trippers Speak Out on Stranded Butanding in Southern Cebu

Everyone who has brushed up on news in Cebu have heard about the whale sharks. Though this is located in Oslob, in the southern part of Cebu, certain events have piqued my concern and thus the reason for this post

Whale shark tours are available daily in Oslob, where you get the chance to be up close and personal with the butanding. The fishermen lure the whale shark with a meal of krill, so other bancas or small boats can approach and let the tourists meet the butanding. However, this is done at a distance. I've kinda noticed that people in Oslob are careful about proximity with the whale shark, as per my friends' pictures and mementos of their trip to Oslob and their meeting with the whale shark.

It seems, however, that some people are taking the "up close and personal" too far. Take a look at this picture:

You can see that this is a stranded butanding located in a shallower part of the waters. Nobody even needed a banca to get close this poor thing. Instead of letting the butanding escape into the ocean to live another day to entertain them, these people instead did something different: they tied the tail of the butanding so that it cannot swim to sea and turned it into a form of tourist attraction.

Take note, this is not located in Oslob where the legitimate whale shark watching services are located. This is in Boljoon, a town located right before Oslob. We don't know what's really going on, or if the butanding has been released already, but some people need to be educated about how to properly treat these animals so that this does not happen again.

Liloan Trippers join the call for the local and provincial government to take action on this through local awareness and penalizing those that made the offense. You cannot imagine the amount of stress that this whale shark is experiencing as it is crowded upon by people. It's helpless with the rope around its tail and people preventing it from escaping.

These are gentle giants, but they also feel stress too. You don't treat it as a surfboard. Personally, as an animal lover, I am disgusted by the extent at which these people turned the gentle butanding into a circus animal. Check out a few more pictures of this poor butanding.

~Immortalundead

P.S. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

Fishing at Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon

As promised here is the video that we took of somebody fishing a catch in Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon!

This one was fished off one of "Catch-and-Release" ponds. You couldn't cook the catch you made here. You have to release them back into the water. Good for sport fishing! Fishes are not as big as the game overseas though.

Liloan Trippers Visit Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon!

As we have promised in our previous post, we are going back to Liloan to visit the ziplines that have been constructed in our dear second home. We had two choices, Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon and dPond. Since Papa Kit's is nearer to the center of town where Swerve and I usually meet, we decided to check it out.

Entrance was 100 pesos per person, and consumable in any of the two restaurants that are in the amazingly large property. There were plenty of things that you could do and these would include horseback riding and fishing at the lagoons/ponds. These have corresponding charges, but in my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the charge schedule found right at the entrance.

There, of course, is the Zipline. As seen from the pictures below, they indeed cross a part of Silot Bay and it's not a simple feat. You have to climb a four-storey structure and once you get to the top, they attach you via a harness to the Zipline and flung you across Silot Bay. For only 200 pesos back and forth, you get to enjoy the beauty of Silot Bay from the sky. Swerver was enthusiastic about trying it, but I wasn't. However, there had been so many people in there as it was a Sunday when we visited so Swerve wasn't able to get his turn.

Oh, about fishing... there are four ponds in which you can fish. Two of these ponds are simply game fishing; when you catch the fish, you'd have to return them back to the pond. Fishing in these waters are no simple feat. The fishes are big! When we arrived, the fishes were right in front but were quick to swim away thus denying me a chance to take their pictures. This guy, however had a lucky catch.

I have a video of him hauling his catch from the pond, and it sure was a fight! I will upload the video to YouTube soon and embed it in a separate blog soon.

To get to Papa Kit's Marina and Fishing Lagoon, turn right from the Church towards Catarman. The entrance to the property can be easily spotted at the right of the road, just before the road turns slightly left and before you reach the bridge crossing to Catarman. There is also an easily seen sign that indicates the entrance to Papa Kit's.

Don't hesitate to visit Papa Kit's! The experience is certainly worth it! It was for me and Swerve.

~Immortalundead