A screenshot from the International Ranger Awards showing the Tubbataha Marine Park Rangers at work underwater
LAST June 2023, when we did our annual “pilgrimage” to Tubbataha, there was a slight pallor of sadness over the divers looking out at the Sulu Sea, where the 960-sq km Tubbataha Reef Natural Park (TRNP) sits.
Yes, a new marine ranger station was rising, 23 years after the old one was built to house the Marine Park Rangers. The old quarters are worn down and dilapidated; in fact, last December 2022, the Rangers had to be evacuated for two weeks after bad weather threatened to blow the station down, literally.
Since then, the old station has been repaired (with financial help from the Metro Pacific Foundation Inc.), and a new and bigger one is being built. Still, the funds will not be sufficient to complete the structure for the men to move in by August, their original target. “It’s frustrating,” admits protected area superintendent Angelique Songco. “We really don’t know how to raise the money.” Until then, the rangers will make do with their old home, but “fundraising” is a word on all of our minds these days.
It’s not the last of Mama Ranger’s concerns. Like I’ve often said, you learn something new every time you come back to this active, thriving marine ecosystem, and I don’t mean just below water. Bird Islet, the tiny, uninhabited patch of land first identified by naturalist Dean C. Worcester in 1911, is home to a globally significant population of seabirds.
Tubbataha was recognized in 2015 as a Flyway Network Site in the Philippines under the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP), a global effort launched in 2006 to protect migratory waterbirds and their habitats. It’s the only known breeding area in the Philippines of the subspecies worcesteri of the Black Noddy (Anous minutus), and hosts the largest breeding colonies of the Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster), Greater Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii), and Brown Noddy (Anous stolidus) on these islands, as well as significant populations of the Red-footed Booby (Sula sula) and the Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus).
Bird Islet, the tiny, uninhabited patch of land first identified by naturalist Dean C. Worcester in 1911, is home to a globally significant population of seabirds
To support the population, the marine park rangers have taken to building nesting structures on the islet, bamboo and wooden “condominiums” where the birds can nest. Thanks to monitoring and care, and enforcement of a no-visitor policy (except for scientists on a regular bird census), population numbers had rebounded back to around 32,300 birds in 2013, after plummeting from about 13,500 breeding seabirds in 1981, to a third of that number in 2003.
Rangers building ‘condominiums’ for the birds on the islet
The bad news is, over the past 40 years, from 1981 to 2021, Bird Islet has been shrinking at a rate of about 199 sqm per year. At this rate, the islet may be gone in 60-70 years, according to studies led by Songco and bird expert and TRNP consultant Arne Jensen. The erosion is visible in photographs of the islet, and has led Songco to consider the possibility of beach nourishment, defined by the United States Institute for Water Resources as “the adding of sediment onto or directly adjacent to an eroding beach…This ‘soft structural’ response allows sand to shift and move with waves and currents.”
In other words, the beach of the islet will have to be physically replenished. The Tubbataha Management Office (TMO) is still studying the feasibility of this approach, which, because of the islet’s remoteness, could also cost a pretty penny.
The eroding beach of Bird Islet (Photo by Alya B. Honasan)
Most heartbreaking of all has been the tragedy of the sinking of the M/Y Dream Keeper, a Cebu-based dive boat, last April 30, 2023, smack in the middle of the brief dive season, after it was hit by a strong squall at the North Atoll. The M/Y Discovery Palawan, our favorite dive boat, had been the closest one to the site that early morning, and the valiant crew managed to rescue 28 of the 32 passengers. Four people were never found: boat owner Denke “Jackie” Yang, 36; passengers Nino Anthony Labrador and Marianne Paz Labrador, both 36; and divemaster Timmy Jean “TJ” Bejoc, 32.
Songco cited the selflessness of the entire Tubbataha diving community, as dive boats on booked trips rushed to the site to offer help, along with several rescue agencies. “Our shared empathy birthed a unified gathering of these kilometrically-named agencies and people who were merely doing their jobs—but were also genuinely putting their hearts into saving others,” she wrote in an update on her FB Page, in a series entitled “Mama Ranger’s Diaries.”
The diving continued, however, as life, winds, and currents continue to flow. On our five-day trip, Tubbataha’s beauty seemed to reassure us that all will still be well. On a couple of dives, I got to witness, for the first time in my diving life, a long-nosed emperor fish (Lethrinus olivaceus) hunting alongside jacks and Napoleon wrasse, and in a dazzling display of natural camouflage, it actually changed patterns right before our eyes. It was absolutely mesmerizing.
Long-nose emperor fish (center) showing off their beautiful camouflage patterns (Photo by Yvette Lee)
Songco cited the selflessness of the entire Tubbataha diving community, as dive boats on booked trips rushed to the site
On June 27–30, the Sabah, Malaysia-based Marine Research Foundation, headed by executive director Dr. Nicholas Pilcher, conducted another study of the marine turtle population in the TRNP. One of the few turtle experts in the world, who has been visiting Tubbataha since 2010, Pilcher used a laparoscopy technique to determine the maturity of turtles. Such studies have helped establish the park as an important foraging area and developmental habitat for turtles in the country. On this survey, Pilcher was joined by a team from the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–Southwest Fisheries Center (NOAA-SWFC) and Dr. Rizza Araceli Salinas of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Biodiversity Management Bureau, and a total of 200 turtles were tagged. “The turtles were huge, the rangers were getting body aches from catching them!” reports Songco. We did get treated to encounters with some frisky Hawksbill turtles on our dives.
A diver spies on a feeding Hawksbill turtle. (Photo by Yvette Lee)
On July 11, Songco would post a hilarious update she titled “Tubbataha Scandal,” where the rangers managed to photograph the islet’s rare Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra) couple, Alon (male) and Amihan (female) in a compromising position. “We installed a camera trap to gather data on the only known breeding pair in the Philippines found in Bird Islet, Tubbataha Reefs,” she wrote. “After hours and hours of camera footage, we found a short clip of Amihan and her partner, Alon, making out. Masked boobies have a life span of 15-20 years and are found mainly in the tropics… As a courtship display, the male calls in a high-pitched whistle. Then they walk together slowly and mate—for all of 10 to 20 seconds. A few weeks later, the pair had two eggs. If we have more scandals like this, our Masked Booby colony will thrive again.”
Finally, last July 26, in an online awarding ceremony broadcast around the world, the Tubbataha Reefs National Park (TRNP) Marine Park Rangers received the International Union for the Conservation of Nature–World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN-WCPA) International Ranger Awards, given annually since 2020 to “highlight…the extraordinary work that rangers do in protected and conserved areas worldwide,” the IUCN-WCPA website states.
Four original, long-time rangers of the TMO— Segundo Conales Jr., Noel Bundal, Jeffrey David, and Cresencio Caranay Jr.—were awarded “for dedicated service and commitment as marine rangers.” Conales says part of the US$10,000 prize money will go to solar panels for their ranger station—and maybe a refrigerator, so they can finally enjoy cold water during the 60-day tours of duty!
So maybe there were clouds (literally and figuratively) in the sky in Tubbataha this year, but like our beloved reefs, the people who love her will remain resilient and optimistic as we continue the work to protect our happy place.
