Giant Stingrays in Tacloban

On the way to lunch, I saw this thing that made my eyes grow wide, and made me get off the vehicle..,

I told the driver to just go ahead, park anywhere and order "our usual" at Yolanda's (blue arrow), while I chased that pedicab (red arrow) carrying curious things that looked intriguingly unfamiliar to my eyes.

Pedicab paused. It got blocked by our vehicle (by chance? or did my witty driver do that on purpose?)

So I got to look at it/them closely, while I continued taking photos. I asked them, and they readily told me "pagi" (stingray). Those looked stingray to me, but I still asked since I was not sure. They were BIG.

I even think that "BIG" is an understatement, as this was my first time to see them that ENORMOUS!

There were 3 "individuals" - I don't know how they are called 'per piece' in English - tatlong piraso? tulo ka bug-os? tulo ka bo-ok? tatlo ka bilog? Ah, there were 3 stingrays and were of about the same size!

If you noticed the dark stains on the pavement, that is stingray blood that was still dripping after their tails were cut off by those men, so they would fit in/on the pedicab. That.., made me cringe a little bit!

I'm not a conservationist, so I did not take these photos to expose wildlife destruction or something..,

I am not even sure if these are endangered. Are they? I do remember from some documentary I saw, that the threatened or endangered stingrays are of the freshwater species. These came from the sea.

No harm there, I guess. Yet, I must tell you my dear readers, I had mixed emotions as I watched..,

The struggle that all 3 of them did when their tails were being cut, was terrible to watch. And, as I took these pictures, I could see that 2 of them still had their lips moving. In a desperate attempt to breath?

Again, I am no conservationist (yet), 'conversationist' yes, and I forced my self to watch all these..,

For a bevy of reasons, like: 1] I am a traveler who must learn to see and accept the daily life at places I visit, even if they're wildly (or violently) different from my day-to-day neighborhood scenes; 2] I should learn to temper my emotions, especially if I don't know the facts about things I see (i.e., bawal ba yan)

As I always say, the world is a big classroom to learn from, therefore go see the world and learn!

On the above stingray scene, my mixed emotions were not just between "happy I saw giant stingrays" or "sad I saw them dying". It also included A] Should I lament that such interesting animals are being killed (on purpose or by accident); or B] Should I be happy for the people in this barangay, who haven't yet even halfway recovered from Supertyphoon Yolanda's wrath, but seem to be 'on the way there'.

If anyone of you my dear readers know about this creature, or if you know someone who can tell us if this is endangered, do tell me so I can help alert those fisherfolks and businessmen. I am almost sure though, they do not go out to sea trying to catch stingrays only. They're rare even in this fishing village.

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