Janine and I have been on the trail of whale sharks for many years. We have gone to Mexico in an attempt to swim with them. But after arriving we found, “they were here last week.” We travelled to the Seychelles but missed them by a couple of weeks. We eventually tried in New Zealand but, “strike three!!!”
We decide to visit the Philippines for a couple of weeks and found a spot at the bottle of Cebu Island where the whale sharks swim all of the time. We were off. From our hotel in Cebu City, we travelled by car for three hours to the south tip of the island to the city of Oslob. What we found was very disturbing to us. “Swimming with the whale sharks” was a major tourist attraction business for the people of Oslob. There were hundreds of tourists on the beach waiting for their turn to swim with the sharks. Ten people were assigned to an outrigger boat and pushed out from the beach. About fifty yards off shore the boat tied up to a static line that kept us from floating away with the current. Everyone jumped in to see the whales as they swam up and down the line of boats with paddling swimmers. We soon saw why they swam up and down the boat line.They were being chummed by another boat out in the water. Daily chumming kept the whales coming back for a free breakfast every morning so the swimmers could have a thrill. It was akin to going to the zoo.
Chumming for large sea creatures to come close to shore subverts their natural hunting skills and migration activities. This disturbed us.
The whales we saw were twenty five foot lazy teenagers out for free food. Adult whales can grow to be over sixty feet long with a mouth that could swallow a car. They are gentle giants cruising the seas searching for food with their toothless mouths. We were not allowed to touch the whales, but if they touched you as they swam by so be it. And then did.
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