This photo of juvenile sharks sold in Dalaguete’s wet market was posted online and caught the attention of authorities.(SOURCE: MARINE WILDLIFE WATCH OF THE PHILIPPINES)
Internet photos of dead sharks being sold in the wet market of Dalaguete town in south Cebu prompted the mayor and local police to trace the vendor.
Dalaguete Mayor Ronald Allan Cesante confirmed the sale a day after the photos were posted in Facebook by a biologist.
BACKSTORY: Sharks sold in Dalaguete market
Police confiscated five kilos of shark meat being sold for P100 by vendor Alvis Cañete last Sunday.
Sr. Insp. Joseph Berondo, Dalaguete police chief, said most of the town’s residents are not aware of the Cebu provincial ordinance banning the capture, killing or sale of all species of sharks in the waters of Cebu.
He said they would invite vendors and fishermen today to attend an information drive about the ban. The report followed a similar discovery last month of Facebook photos showing shark meat being sold in a public market in Bantayan town.
Photos of juvenile sharks were posted on the Facebook account of Donna Langstrump, who is finishing a master’s degree in Biology at the University of the Philippines (UP)- Visayas.
Langstrump told Cebu Daily News that she and her brother-in-law happened to pass by the wet market in barangay Poblacion in Dalaguete last Sunday when she saw the illegal dispaly in one of the stalls.
“I was just passing through on my way to Negros. It was a Sunday and I couldn’t find any figure of authority to report it to in the area,” she said.
After talkin with the vendor, Langstrump said she learned that fishermen caught the sharks using hooks.
“She made it sound like baby sharks were being caught and sold in the area, like in the photos, and that this was not rare,” she said.
She said she took the photos between 1:30 p.m to 2:00 p.m last Sunday.
She told her discovery to a friend Lorrain Tala who sent the shark photos to the Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines.
“We confirmed that here in the Poblacion wet market, we saw someone selling baby sharks. We only learned about this yesterday,” Mayor Cesante told Cebu Daily News in Cebuano.
The vendor told police he got the shark meat from a certain “Tata”.
Police are waiting for a report from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) 7 to confirm the shark meat before they file charges against the vendor.
Under the provincial ordinance amended in 2014, the selling, trading of endangered species including all species of sharks within the municipal waters of Cebu is illegal.
Those caught selling, transporting, and trading of any species of sharks will be fined P1,000 per kilo.