Overfishing and coral reef destruction could have caused the mass strandings of “hungry” whales in Bataan and Romblon over the last three months, the World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines (WWF) said.

Two mass strandings of melon-headed whales (Peponocephala electra) were reported, one in the waters off Pilar and Orani towns in Bataan in February, and the other in shores of Odiongan town in Romblon in the first week of March.

Both cases involved at least 100 whales.

According to WWF-Philippines president Lory Tan, marine mammals only do a number of things out at sea – they eat, they sleep, they play, and they mate.

“They can sleep, play or mate just about anywhere. However, they can only eat where there is food,” Tan said.

He said that sighting of dolphins and whales are very rare in the Philippines.

For instance, he said it unusual for melon-headed whales, which are deep-water feeders, to gather so close to shore” even if the species have been involved in mass strandings throughout the world.

He said there are more than 80 species of whales and dolphins that populate the world’s seas, and each one exists to feed on very specific prey, providing a regulatory function that keeps the oceanic food chain in balance.

“Here in the Philippines, we have consumed just about every form and size of seafood there is. We have fished down our food web. And, believe it or not, we continue to do so. When the normal prey of melon-headed whales no longer exists in the abundance they need to sustain their own life, like you and I, they will simply move to another ‘supermarket,’” Tan said.

“Human population pressure, poverty and the fact that more than 50 percent of all Filipinos depend on the sea for their primary source of protein, make it very clear that most of our seas will continue to be fished intensively,” he said.

Tan said a study has estimated that, in certain fishing zones, “we have consumed 90 percent of our fish stocks over the last 60 years.”

He noted a major study of coral reefs about 15 years ago, where it showed that “less than three percent of Philippine reefs were in excellent shape.”

“Unlike the few remaining coral reefs that line our coasts, primary productivity in the deep seas of the tropics has been compared to a desert.

When it’s gone, unless we leave it alone for a long time, it will probably not come back to what it was. When their favorite deepwater “feeding holes” no longer provide sufficient food for the entire pod of whales, they move on,” Tan said.

“Mangrove forests, the nurseries of the coast, showed a 66 percent shrinkage 15 years ago, as well. Today, the situation is probably worse,” he said.