Marine Turtle - An Endangered Species

I just would like to share the effort of the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist (OMA) in the Municipality of Calubian in saving some endangered species usually seen in our area- the Marine Turtle. Actually, it needs perseverance and dedication to do advocacy efforts in order to inform the marginal fishers who thought catching the said animal is just comparable to ordinary fishes. Fishermen in the area just slaughter their catch of this kind before they were informed of the consequences since according to them its meat is palatble and others claim it to be appprodisiac.

It was the late Mayor Salvador Po, Sr., the former mayor and the father of the incumbent mayor of Calubian Hon. Hazel "Dayday" Po (Photo above holding a turtle) who ordered a massive information campaign in saving one of the endangered treasures in the ocean, the marine turtle. In fact, he was the first local chief executive who freed a marine turtle to the wild together with some personnel from the "Pawikan Conservation Project" based in Quezon City who just visited in Calubian just to make lectures regarding the importance and the need to intensify the campaign against illegal catching of this "Pawikan" the local name in dialect of the marine turtle.

With strong coordiantion with OMA, CLAD- an NGO operating in the municipality and the different organizations, cooperatives and fishermen association, the campaign was so successful that everytime a pawikan had been accidentally caught in the fish corrals of the fisherman, the incident will automatically be coordinated to the OMA for freeing the pawikan back to the sea. OMA will also submit report to the PCP in Quezon City so that the trail of the animal would be traced since before freeing it is being tagged with number for future identification. PCP and OMA is providing some incentives for fisherman who turned over the pawikan in the form of token and some cash.