Bohol Tarsier, tourist attraction no more
My wife & I visited Bohol last December and I blogged about our wonderful experience. Part of the tour package is the Tarsier experience where you can come close with these tiny beautiful creature.
I’m not sure about the others, but our tour guide, Joel forewarned us not to use flash when taking photos of the Tarsier, thanks to the high ISO capability of Nikon D60, the flash can be stressful to these creature.
But what we’ve experience might not be possible to those planning to visit Bohol in the future, an ordinance was passed by the Provincial Government prohibiting the use of Tarsier for display and viewing.
Honestly, I don’t know where to stand on this matter, most Boholanos were thankful of the jobs being generated by its tourism. As we all know, Bohol = Tarsier and Tarsier = Bohol has been the equation, although there are other attractions in this beautiful province, we can’t deny how big the impact will be on Bohol tourism.
On the other hand, we can’t deny the effect of too many visitors and never ending photo shoot to these animals. These is not their natural habitat and way of life, I remember Joel telling us that the lifespan of the Tarsier in captivity is shorter by 40-50% compared to the one’s in the wild.
The Provincial government has set a PhP5,000 fine for violators, as expected, the operators of the Tarsier viewing establishments are protesting this ordinance.
