All LAMAVE team members are safe after #TyphoonOdette (Rai).
The team in Puerto Princesa City Palawan have just received access to communications through SMART (Wed 22 Dec)…
Read More
New study redefines provisioning in marine wildlife tourism
Philippines, 29 June 2021, A new study by researchers from the Southern Shark Ecology Group at Flinders University, James Cook University and Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines, amongst others, has reviewed the current use of provisioning-associated terminology within the marine wildlife tourism sector and has proposed to reclassify provisioning into Feeding, Attracting and Modifying habitat.
Read More
Long term study reveals no improvement in the impact of the whale shark tourism in Oslob, Philippines over 6 years
A new study by researchers from the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE) and published in the journal Royal Society Open Science show the continuous impacts of provisioning (hand feeding) on the behavior of whale sharks in Oslob, Philippines and how the tourism industry is failing to comply with regulations to protect this endangered species.
Read More
Hand-feeding of endangered whale sharks in Oslob, Cebu changes diving behaviour and raises concerns over implications to their health
Philippines, 13 October 2020, A new study published in Scientific Reports finds that resident whale sharks have changed their diving behaviour in response to the hand-feeding activities (provisioning) used to attract the animals in the waters of barangay Tan-Awan, Oslob, Cebu, to allow tourism interaction. The study further investigates how these changes could have implications on the bioenergetics (flow and transformation of energy) of individual whale sharks frequently visiting the mass tourism site.
Read More
Lack of management intervention leads to increased injuries on endangered whale sharks in Oslob, Cebu, Philippines
Oslob Cebu, 8 October 2020. A new study published by LAMAVE in the journal Aquatic Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems this week, present the results of some of the work conducted since 2012 to assess the impacts of tourism activities on individual whale sharks in Oslob, Cebu
Read More
LAMAVE and the Philippines Siren team up for sharks
This January we (LAMAVE) teamed up for a third time with Worldwide Dive and Sail to bring an exclusive trip around the Visayas, Philippines. This trip was designed to visit Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE) project site in Sogod Bay, Southern Leyte, and sites where marine megafauna abound in Cebu, Bohol and Leyte islands…
Read More
Controlling a whale shark mass tourism destination: new study investigates crowding and tourist expectations
A new scientific study by Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE) and the University of Victoria (Canada) reveals that overcrowding is a significant issue for Oslob whale shark watching tours. The study presents management interventions aimed at improving the tourist experience and recommends reducing tourist numbers to 500 daily visitors….
Read More
The Guilty Pleasure of Swimming with Hand-fed Whale Sharks
Scientific study reveals tourist perspectives on the ethics of feeding whale sharks in Oslob, Philippines. Two-thirds of TripAdvisor comments that mentioned ethical issues were classified as “Guilty Pleasure”, whereby the tourists were aware of the moral and ethical issues of feeding an endangered species for tourism purposes, but still chose to do the tour and recommended it to others…
Read More
Feeding the world largest fish: impact of provisioning on whale shark presence and migration
A new paper from the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines and the Centre for Integrative Ecology of Deakin University in Australia describes the effect of provisioning (attracting wildlife with food to facilitate human interaction) on the presence and migratory behaviour of the whale shark in Oslob, Cebu, Philippines.
Read More