Diving in Shark Heaven: Tubbataha Reefs in the Philippines
The Philippines is known for its fantastic diving, but the jewel in the crown is Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. It’s the largest marine protected area in the country, encompassing 1000 square kilometers of offshore coral atolls and surrounding waters. The reefs have been protected since 1988, and the area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
Considering how amazing it is – the coral is spectacular, with sea fans the size of cars, there are turtles everywhere, and it’s extremely sharky – Tubbataha isn’t a particularly well-known dive destination. The reef system is only accessible for liveaboard vessels for a few weeks each year, when the winds die down and the seas calm, so not many people have had a chance to experience the area yet.
The drawcard for us, unsurprisingly, is the sharks!
At least 23 species of sharks and rays use the park. Tubbataha is one of the only places where whale sharks are routinely seen by divers, and reef mantas are also there, with some reliable cleaning stations. There’s a chance at seeing tiger sharks, threshers, hammerhead schools, and gorgeous eagle rays, but the reef sharks – whitetips and grey reefs – dominate through sheer force of numbers.
While there’s been a lot of excellent science done at Tubbataha, there had been no dedicated shark surveys prior to 2015. That year, the Large Marine Vertebrates Research Institute Philippines (LAMAVE), the Tubbataha Management Office, the on-site ranger team, and me, started using diving surveys and underwater video to assess shark abundance.
The reef shark densities are some of the highest recorded worldwide, more than three times those seen in no-take areas of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
These fantastic results are a tribute to good management. The foresight to protect the area in the 1980s has allowed multiple generations of reef sharks – which reach adulthood at around 10 years – to live and reproduce without fishing pressure. These gains compound over time. It’s shark heaven. Lots of other big predators are present too, from dogtooth tuna to massive schools of jacks.
