A whale shark (Rhincodon typus) was found dead in the village of Poblacion East in Oton, Iloilo yesterday.
Fisherman Julio Mediodia said that he found the whale shark when it got caught in his fishing net, ABS-CBN News reported. Bombo Radyo stated that Mediodia didn’t mean to catch the marine animal.
Fisheries technician Salvacion Cordero told Bombo Radyo that the whale shark weighed 700 kilos and was about four meters long.
Cordero said that it’s possible that the whale shark was already weak when it died in the fishing net because it didn’t have any wounds, the same ABS-CBN News report added.
The local government recommended for the whale shark to be buried so that residents won’t be bothered by the decaying smell of the dead animal.
In August, a whale shark washed ashore in Tagum City in Davao del Norte. A biologist performed a necropsy on the marine creature and found that there were several pieces of plastic inside its stomach.
Whale sharks are known as the “gentle giants” of the ocean and are the largest living fish species.
In a July 2016 report released by Switzerland-based watchdog group the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), whale sharks were listed as endangered species.
“It is alarming to see such emblematic species slide towards extinction,” the Director of IUCN’s Global Species Programme Jane Smart said in the report.
The IUCN added that whale sharks have lessened to more than half in the last 75 years due to “growing human pressures” as they continue to be hunted by people and get killed by ship propellers.
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