The capture of “Lolong,” the 6.4-meter-long crocodile, has focused national and international attention on the Agusan Marsh. It is not difficult to imagine the entry of brackish water crocodiles into the marsh in earlier times, when sea levels were higher. Humans have hunted the reptiles for leather and meat, specifically from the 1960s until 1994 when the marsh came under the National Integrated Protected Area System (Nipas) which, in turn, stopped most crocodile hunting in the marsh (already declared a national and international wetland sanctuary by Presidential Proclamation 913 and the Ramsar Convention, respectively).
The ban on hunting removed man as the top predator from the food chain, leaving the crocodiles to grow in numbers as well as body size. Some 5,000 crocodiles are believed to be in the marsh now, and there is an ongoing debate on whether to build a bigger facility or enclosing a portion of the natural habitat for Lolong. Sadly lacking in all this is science—without accurate information, human-crocodile encounters will continue. All it takes is one, just one, attack on a tourist, and Agusan del Sur can forget its dreams of ecotourism.
A workshop of a dozen or so crocodile experts on wildlife or bred animals should be convened soonest. The workshop should assess what is known of brackish water crocodiles both in the marsh and elsewhere, point out information gaps, and answer such questions as: How many of these reptiles are in the swamps and rivers, in what sex ratios and sizes? What is the carrying capacity of the marsh for crocodiles? For humans? For humans and crocodiles? Where exactly along the Agusan River, or in the marsh (other than Lake Mihaba) do they rest, feed, nest and undertake the daily activities of crocodile life?
Such knowledge will provide the basis for a regulatory framework to include the culling (controlled harvest) of wild crocodiles to stabilize their population, and the zoning of the marsh into residential, fisheries, navigational, tourism and other zones.
As an Agusanon by birth and biologist by profession, I call on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and other national agencies to organize such a workshop; on the local government officials of Agusan del Sur and Caraga Region to provide the logistics; and on all of them to fund the research.
A huge 19,000-hectare freshwater ocean when it rains, the marsh water area is down to 15,000 hectares in the dry season. In this manner does the marsh—the Middle Basin of the 1.2 million-hectare Agusan River Basin that dominates Eastern Mindanao—act as a sponge absorbing the waters from the Upper Basin and regulating their downstream flow, saving Agusan del Norte, Butuan City and the rest of the Lower Basin from catastrophic floods.
Agusanons and Mindanaoans should have the opportunity to visit the Agusan Marsh at least once in their lifetime, as much for its ecological importance as its magical beauty.
—J.H. PRIMAVERA, Ph.D.,
Butuan Global Forum,
Pew fellow and scientist emerita,
SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department,
Tigbuan, Iloilo, jhprima@seafdec.org.ph