Sharks Once Roamed the Waters of Taal Lake. Where Are They Now?

>pAccording to Villadolid, the bull sharks were the largest fish that swam in the lake. The sharks accessed the lake through the Pansipit River, which connected the lake to Balayan Bay adjacent to the West Philippine Sea. >pVilladolid’s 1934 study mentions that the fry of migratory fishes used the Pansipit River to migrate into friendlier waters where fewer fishes could prey on them. They reached Taal Lake where they grew into adults, then exited through the river again to breed in the estuary between the river and Balayan Bay. >p“Bull sharks are one of the few requiem sharks that can enter freshwater,” Gregg Yan, environmentalist, tells Esquire Philippines. >pNow, the lake is no longer connected to the sea because of changes in geography caused by Taal Volcano’s eruptions. >p“Before, Taal Lake was connected to the sea and it was fully marine, then brackish, then now after 300 plus years, fully freshwater,” Yan said. >pThe Last Sighting of Bull Sharks>h2Bull sharks are now extinct in Taal Lake and Pansipit River, and could never return because the lake is no longer connected to Balayan Bay. >p“According to the famed zoologist Dioscoro S. Rabor, bull sharks were abundant in Taal Lake but were exterminated by overfishing in the 1930s,” said Yan. >p“They were probably either hunted down to levels wherein it’s difficult to keep a breeding population stable,  or their preys were affected which is why their own population also vanished. But it’s probably the former.”>pUnique Species in Taal Lake That Could Go the Same Way as the Bull Shark>h2Today, Taal Lake is no longer the pristine lake it used to be in the 1900s. Just like Lake Lanao, its population of endemic species is threatened by the introduction of invasive species of fish that prey on them. >pTawilis>h3