A soon to be extinct delicacy

1 35
Avatar for Hanzell
4 years ago

Today I want to talk about a favorite local delicacy of mine since I remember having attended a seminar about its gene sequencing and about its preservation

The tawilis, scientific name: Sardinella tawillis, Is the only freshwater sardinella specie found in the world and as of now. They can only be found in the lake that surrounds Taal volcano, which is situated here in the Philippines. Areas that surround the lake had made the fish into a delicacy which later on became the cause of its current endangered status and eventually will lead it to the brink of extinction.

If you ever find yourself in the area of Tagaytay and Batangas, Philippines. these are the areas that serve some of the best fried tawillis and even tawillis pizza that became a specialty of its restaurants. Tourists, especially foodies, travel there for the specific reason of simply having a taste. But what they are unaware of is that eventually these fishes might not even be available in the near future with how overly fished they are.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) had been aiming at its re-population since the endangered status of the specie was raised, however majority of their experiments ended in a failure. One of these experiments involved relocation of the fish into another lake but that resulted in a violent reaction towards the new environment, thus ending in the death of all relocated fish under the trial. Another experiment conducted was to crossbreed the species with its so-called sister specie, Sardinella hualinensis, which is found in Taiwan. It was believed that S. tawillis came from this specie of Sardinella given that 2/3 of their gene sequences were highly identical. However, yet another violent reaction was what resulted in the death of both breeds.

Hopefully there would come a better solution to save the species from extinction aside from allowing them to mate at their respective seasons.

*I wanted to show some result of the experiments from the presentation but then it's not mine to present and I only want to raise awareness for this poor delicious fish*

13
$ 0.34
$ 0.23 from @TheRandomRewarder
$ 0.10 from @bitcoin
$ 0.01 from @jwolf
Sponsors of Hanzell
empty
empty
empty
Avatar for Hanzell
4 years ago

Comments

You have my thumbs-up for writing this. We hardly eat these fish. The only place I see them is in the pet shop. They are sold dry and are meant to be a snack for the cat. I never bought it for mine.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

They're just cat food in some places? 😥 that's just sad. And here it's a really expensive snack for drinking and not everyone can get a taste of it outside it's endemic region

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Yes it is cat food. Why is it sad? Cat need to eat too although mice, rats and birds make good food too but these days a group of people fights cats because they kill birds. Soon the cat will no longer exist either.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

The cat is way too domesticated to be close to extinction yet :"" just can't accept the idea of a delicacy being cat food. It feels like it's injustice to the food. Plus there's treats for those cats :<that don't need to be fish

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Actually, cats are not that domestic at all. If you kick out cats into the wild they survive, get wild and vats like these no one can handle. With us they try to catch them they get neutered/castrated and set out again or put to death.

With us cat and dog food should be eaten by humans too. Don't ask me why and this fish is not seen as a delicacy with us but a cheap, untasty fish. We for example would not feed salmon to a cat (although some cat food says it contains it).

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Ah I keep forget that a large numbet of cats and dogs get neutered in athor countries to prevent overpopulation during heats :" But I'm still sad at the lack of appreciation for the fish, it's quite delicious when cooked right

$ 0.00
4 years ago

Perhaps it is because it's not really our fish and people haven't as many experiences in cooking them? I never saw them fresh with us. Hardly see fish shops in the past years.

$ 0.00
4 years ago

I approved this for Natural Science (1c4e), but please capitalise the English word "I". There are several occurrences of "i". Please can you correct that?

$ 0.00
4 years ago

My apologies, I didn't notice those :"" i corrected those

$ 0.00
4 years ago