SWIMMING WITH WHALE SHARKS IN OSLOB CEBU
In Early 2018 we woke before sunrise and were driven 13 minutes from our guest house to the Whale Watching site. Even at this early hour there were a number of people ready to board boats to catch a sight of the incredible Whale Shark. There are many reasons we found out later to not swim with the Sharks in Oslob, but controversially there are also reasons to swim with these sharks. Selfishly the Shark watching industry in this area has created many jobs for what once was a small struggling town. Whale Sharks are now also protected in the Philippines, they used to be hunted for their meat and fins. Many will say it's better to have the tourism to watch sharks than the Sharks being killed.
The experience is much more like being at the zoo, or aquarium than seeing these magnificent animals in the wild. The Sharks are free to come and go as they please but food is placed in the water to attract them.
The whole experience lasts 30 minutes and costs 1000 pesos per person. As the boat drove out to meet the line of other boats we couldn't see anything, to our surprise as soon as we jumped off the side a massive Whale Shark was right in front of us. Its mouth open wide and swimming towards us. We were briefed before embarking on the boat that you must not touch the Sharks and remain at least 4 meters away. We had roughly 4 people per boat on this morning and after reading several articles in 2020 more than two years later we have heard that the Shark watching has become incredibly popular and to the point where the numbers are unsustainable and unfair on the sharks. According to recent reports more than 100,000 people visit each year now and there are many reports that the continuing feeding is impacting the sharks migration habits.
The experience was breathtaking purely because the Sharks were so incredible, elegant and graceful. They glide past you and one swish of their tails propels them a great distance. They were enormous as well, the size of the boats we were on. The snorkels that we were provided were useless as we spent most of the time underwater watching the movement of the Sharks. After the 30 minutes our captain got our attention and we climbed back on the boat and drove the short 50 meters back to shore.
Personally though we wouldn't go again to a baited Shark watching experience. We would much rather see them in the open ocean where they are not being lured in and then potentially becoming dependent on the free food.
If you choose to visit Oslob and watch the Whale Sharks then that is your own choice and you should not be judged for it. Ourselves like many others have done so after being told about the so-called eco experience. These days many wild animal experiences are rigged in some way. From African safaris to Orangutan trekking in Sumatra. Our impact as humans has caused these tourism opportunities to pop up because we continually hunt these magnificent animals and destroy their habitats.
Like many of these experiences the takeaway should be awareness of our own personal impact on the world and make a promise to ourselves that we will do better so that animals can survive and thrive for many generations to come.
