MANILA — Almost as soon as the initial reports of a shark attack near Isla Verde in the Verde Island Passage were out, members of the diving community were posting about how unlikely that was and of the need for more details on the death of two Russian divers involved.

The Philippine Coast Guard as well as the dive center that organized the trip to the Pulong Bato dive spot have said the two unlucky divers had not died from injuries caused by sharks — a strong, unexpected current swept them away and they drowned.

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Panic around the incident, however, is not doing sharks — misunderstood and feared since before the 1974 release of the movie “Jaws” and much more since then — any favors.

There are an estimated 200 species of sharks in the Philippines, of which 25 are protected by law, according to a fact sheet by Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines.

They “continue to be under threat from unregulated fishing and tourism practices, consumption, trade, and human degradation,” MWW Philippines also says.

In a social media post about the Isla Verde incident, it said that thresher sharks, whale sharks, blacktip reef sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks and “a new species of swell shark” have been spotted in the Verde Island Passage, a waterway between Luzon and Mindoro that is a biodiversity hotspot.

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“Despite its diversity in shark species, there [have] been no shark attacks recorded in the [Verde Island Passage],” it also said.

Boogs Rosales, a professional wildlife filmmaker who has 15 years of diving experience, is among the members of the dive community who lamented the "speculation and misinformation" around incidents like the one in the Verde Island Passage.

"Outside of the community, sharks are still largely misunderstood," he told ABS-CBN News in an online exchange.

"It's safe to say that decades of unfair portrayal by the media and television has influenced what people think they know about sharks."

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PERCEPTION AND CONSERVATION

Sharks help keep ecosystems healthy by helping control populations of the species they eat and their presence is an indicator of a healthy ocean, according to conservation organizations like MMW Philippines and Oceana.

Rosales said that shark spottings are rare in Philippine waters except in remote and protected areas like Tubbataha Reef in Palawan and Apo Reef in Mindoro.

"The reality for divers is that they are more afraid of us than we are of them," he said. Unless there is bait in the water, he said, "there is no reason for a shark to approach a scuba diver."

It matters how the public perceives animals like sharks, Rosales said, because, "we can only protect what we care about, and we can only care about what we are familiar with and understand."

Misconceptions about sharks could lead, as happened after the release of "Jaws", a rush to hunt them as proof of courage, according to University of Florida shark researcher George Burgess in a 2016 article on shark hunting and conservation by the Florida Museum.

"It’s hard enough to protect the mighty Philippine Eagle from random poachers, what more a 'mindless killing machine'?" Rosales said.

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Divers are "wary of perpetuating the whole ‘Jaws’ thing about sharks," environmental economist Tara Abrina, who is also a freediving instructor who has helped train reef rangers, said.

"There may be a risk of them being hunted," she said in an online exchange of the danger of the narrative of a shark attack. 

"Or there’ll be a policy passed [saying] 'yeah, let’s cull all the sharks'. Formally, there may be something that will happen like that," she said.

That was proposed in a marine national park in Brazil after incidents in 2015 and 2022. 

"Being a shark hotspot, this would affect many more species than those involved in incidents, entailing potentially significant consequences in the region’s marine ecosystem," researchers wrote in "Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation" in 2024.

Even without that kind of policy, Abrina said, "informally, people will be 'Oh, that makes me so scared of sharks'.”

She said that dealing with shark attacks is not really part of her training classes, but that she does demonstrate what to do when there is an encounter during one.

"Normally kasi they swim away, as in sila pa takot (The sharks get scared off)."

MWW Philippines says on its social media post to “be cautious of sharks but do not fear them” and to follow responsible tourism guidelines when interacting with them.

“Understand that the sea is the shark’s home and it is just doing what it’s supposed to do: scour the sea for food to survive,” it also said.

'HOPE SPOTS' FOR MARINE LIFE

Misconceptions about sharks could also lead to policies that could hurt tourism, especially in places like Malapascua and Oslob in Cebu, and in Donsol in Sorsogon, where sharks are an attraction, but not without debate on how tourism could affect the environment.

"We already saw a knee jerk reaction from the Quezon Tourism Office banning all in water activities in their area," Rosales said, referring to a ban that was rescinded within hours and replaced with a reminder to be careful in the water.

"Thousands of livelihoods and coastal communities rely on tourism," he said, adding "stakeholders should be consulting with experts, not just making decisions based on fear and speculation."

Sharks, according to research released in 2023, are being driven to extinction by overfishing, although there are "hope spots" in developing countries.

"In and around them, things are fairly depleted — but in those areas where you have strong MPAs (marine protected areas) and really good ways to enforce them, you have robust shark populations," researcher Michael Heithaus of Florida International University said then.

One of those hope spots, according to conservation organization Mission Blue in 2023, is the Verde Island Passage, making conservation and protection of the area even more important partly because of — and not despite of — the sharks.

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