A dive center staff, Mark Castillon, agreed with Sarcadio saying that this type of spear is used by local spear fisher-divers in his hometown in Davao Oriental.
Gelaine Arguillas, chief of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Protected Area Management section in the Davao region also notes that for the triggerman to be able to come face to face with ‘Agdao’ to spear her at the angle as when they found the shaft, he must have stayed under water for some time discounting fishermen who stay on the surface to have been responsible due to the angle of the shaft lodged in the neck of the turtle. Dr. Ken Lao, the animal doctor who treated Agdao and removed the spear, confirms the angle of the spear that he extracted from the turtle.
Turtle ‘Agdao,’ a hawksbill sea turtle, has a bulge on her neck after being pierced by a spear. She was found in early April 2018 by fishermen off the coast of Agdao in Davao City and is currently under the care of Roche Manib, Sr. and the rest of the staff of the Aboitiz Cleanergy Park, a wildlife conservation area in Punta Dumalag, Davao City. MindaNews photo by MANMAN DEJETO
This writer tried to get in touch with divers who spear for a living but they do business off and on and were not available when he went to a specified place in the hope of meeting them.
The spear shaft taken from the body of turtle ‘Agdao.’ Photo courtesy of OSCAR C. BREVA
The DENR and Fermin Edillon of the Punta Dumalag pawikan conservation park cautions, however, that turtles are migratory creatures and if her wound was weeks old, if not months, when she was found, ‘Agdao’ could have been speared somewhere else and not necessarily in Davao.
In the end, Carabao Dive Center owner-operator Dick Hurlbut says that “the jerk who speared ‘Agdao’ will not likely be caught unless he brags about it in a drinking spree and his drinking buddies rat on him.”
“Who in his right mind spears a turtle?” Hurlbut barks, shaking his head. (Oscar C. Breva is a Davao City-based lawyer and diver.[]
He was managing editor of Atenews at the Ateneo de Davao University in 1977-1978 and before proceeding to Law school at the Ateneo de Manila University, wrote for the San Pedro Express, a Davao City newspaper edited by the late Alfrredo Navarro Salanga.[]
