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SORSOGON
CITY—Local fisheries experts allayed fears over possible
contaminations that could be acquired by commercial
fishes from still unrecovered bodies of hundreds of
victims killed in maritime tragedies caused by Typhoon
Frank two weeks ago.
“All
species of commercial fishes that our fishermen catch,
sell in the market and end on our dining tables are
noncarnivorous, meaning, they do not eat flesh or any
part of dead human bodies,” Dennis del Socorro, regional
director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources (Bfar) said in a press statement released here
over the weekend.
Even
killer sharks that are feared as man-eaters are not
attracted to dead human carcasses for food, del Socorro
said.
The Bfar
regional chief issued the statement amid what he said
were false apprehensions over contaminations of ocean
fishes feeding on dead bodies of the victims of sea
tragedies, particularly that of the sinking of MV
Princess of the Stars off Romblon at the height of
Typhoon Frank that hardly hit the Visayan and some Luzon
regions.
Apart
from the Sulpicio Lines-owned giant commercial vessel
that sank with about 850 passengers and crewmen onboard,
several smaller seacraft, including fishing boats with
undetermined number of people with them, were also
reportedly caught by turbulent seas and capsized at the
middle of the ocean in several other areas hit by the
typhoon.
Hundreds
were killed in these tragedies with some of the dead and
decomposing bodies swept by sea current into different
coastal areas in Bicol, particularly Burias Island in
Masbate, Pioduran in Albay and Pasacao in Camarines Sur
and Pilar in Sorsogon have been retrieved.
More
victims are missing and mostly believed dead and carried
by waves into different other places adjoining the
mishap areas. Philippine Coast Guard divers that
conducted rescue and retrieval operations also found
several dead bodies trapped inside cabins of the
ill-fated passenger vessel.
In Pilar
town, a decomposing body of an unidentified male victim
was found on Friday and buried by villagers near the
shoreline. Town Mayor Dennis Reyes said he had reports
that three other bodies had been sighted by fishermen at
Ticao Pass off the town’s shorelines on the same day.
Before
the recovered body was buried, Reyes said local health
authorities extracted a flesh sample from it to be
submitted for forensic examination that could lead to
its identification.
Del
Socorro said his office received reports on the
widespread apprehensions on the part of fish consumers
in Bicol and nearby provinces over the possible
contaminations that could be caused by the dead human
bodies on fishes eating them. “My assurance is that it
could not be possible given the common nature of our
commercial fishes that are noncarnivorous.”
These
apprehensions have been resulting in a false fish scare
affecting fishermen and fish traders that are
complaining of poor turnout of buyers, he said.
Serafin
Lacdang, chief of the fisheries division of the Sorsogon
Provincial Agricultural Office, supported del Socorro’s
statement on the noncarnivorous characteristics of
commercial fishes, saying that if indeed they eat human
flesh, recovering those bodies two or more days after
the tragedies would already be remote.
“But
most bodies recovered, although in advance state of
decompositions, were intact, proving that the fishes
including sharks were not interested on them for food,”
Lacdang said.
On the
effect on the market of the artificial fish scare, he
said it favored consumers in one way as prices of fish
in the local market have been observed to go down and
demand for vegetables up for lowly marketgoers who
cannot afford the staggering prices of livestock meats.
Fish
prices here and across the Bicol region, he said, have
gone down from P120 to P180 to P80 to 100 per kilo,
while chicken, pork and beef prices remained at P160 to
P240 per kilo.
“The
situation favors the farmers, particularly this time
that supply of vegetables in the market is abundant
being harvest season,” Lacdang added. |
