BEFORE the year 2008 was over, another mammal was buried at the world’s only known fish cemetery located inside the 24-hectare National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center (NIFTDC) in Bonuan Binloc, Dagupan City last December 31.

This time it was a 2.5 to 3 ton female whale that died on December 29 after it was “bumped” by a large passenger vessel that was enroute to Manila from Palawan.

For identification purposes, the whale was named “Roxanne” by Executive Director Westly Rosario of the National Fisheries Research Institute (NFRI), concurrent chief of NIFTDC.

Rosario said it was so named “Roxanne” after a popular sitcom in a U.S. television starred by a fat woman named “Roxanne” and also on account of the Year of the Ox in the Chinese calendar.

“Roxanne” was the biggest mammal ever to have been buried in the nine-year old fish cemetery established in 1999. The first mammal buried there was a whale, too, named “Moby Dick”.

About 10 men, aided by a boom truck, buried the 10-foot long mammal in a shallow grave in the north western portion of the 1,000-square meter fish cemetery.

After a 4 hour trip from Pier 14 in Manila where the remains of Roxanne were fetched, it  took another two hours before the mammal could be lowered from the boom truck into a newly dug shallow grave, about six feet deep, 15 feet long and five feet wide.

Because of its sheersize and weight, it had to be cut into four pieces and lowered to the grave piece-by-piece.

Before it was transported to Dagupan for burial, the dead mammal underwent necropsy on order BFAR Director Malcolm Sarmiento to find out the proximate cause of its death.

The necropsy showed that “Roxanne” died from drowning as gleaned from the big amount of water found in its lungs.

Blood samples of the dead mammal also indicated that it is a Bryde’s Whale, not a Minke Whale which normally thrives on icy water.

Rosario told newsmen he was not surprised at all when the necropsy listed drowning as the possible cause of death of the whale because this often occurs the moment the cetacean becomes disoriented.

Since its establishment nine years ago, the fish cemetery which is now often visited by environmentalists and marine biologists the world over was already the final resting place of 14 other dead fish mammals, among them dolphins, all belonging to the endangered fish species.

Rosario said the fish cemetery was established purposely to institutionalize human respect for animal species that contribute to the balance of aquatic environment but selfishly abused by humans. –LM

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