Close Encounter with the Tamaraw

I’m posting here an article by a co-worker and friend. She had the rare opportunity to see tamaraws in the wild... and she’s even more fortunate she came back in good shape after a very close encounter with the wild animal.

I’ll hopefully write more about the tamaraw, especially since very few people seem to really understand what they’re all about. (And I promise to give interesting and informative trivia since my hubby himself is considered an expert, having worked with the DENR Tamaraw Conservation Program for over five years.) For now, I’m glad Danee had the chance (not to mention the courage and the strength!) to battle Mts. Iglit-Baco in Occidental Mindoro and meet the fierce national animal of the Philippines.

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Close encounter with the tamaraw
By Daneelyn A. Querijero

Our team had a unique mission. That is to see the famous tamaraw up close. The mission theater of operation: a 16,000-hectare expanse within the 75, 445-ha Mt. Iglit National Park in Occidental Mindoro.

But before we could fulfill our mission, we have to figure out an equally formidable problem: how to dig deep into the wilds of Mindoro for the encounter……

All four of us from the Public Affairs Office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) took the bold step of hooking up with a team of tamaraw “crusaders” from the Tamaraw Conservation Program (TCP) of the DENR to witness how they take on the task of accurately counting the number of the elusive mammal within the expanse of that jungle.

That this was my first time to join the “hunt” only heightened my excitement even more and hardly gave a thought to what lay ahead of me in the four days that would follow. Little did I imagine that those four days at Mts. Iglit-Baco will give me more than what I bargained for……

Tourists, media people, and even students have trekked every summer to Mt. Iglit to be ``up close and personal’’ with an animal considered by the World Conservation Union as critically endangered since 2002. It normally takes an average of seven hours to get to tamaraw territory. It took us 10 hours – but only because we had to take a break during the journey and fell asleep in the process!

Our trek to Mt. Iglit started on a trail in a village named (or nicknamed) Poypoy in the town of Calintaan. From there we were to go to the top of Mt. Magawang, said to be the ``core habitat’’ of the tamaraw. As we started, the weather turned from refreshingly cool to periods of unbearable heat that we could feel intensely in our faces and back. We soldiered on.

As I walked, I felt pleased as it never crossed my mind that I could one day come face to face with a tamaraw --- in its own turf, no less. As I’ve heard, these are not exactly gregarious fellas -- even the mountain dwellers fear the tamaraw’s deadly horns and catlike speed. No doubt, they say, tamaraws are fierce, especially when cornered or threatened. Gifted with an acute sense of smell, the tamaraws use it to alert each other to the arrival of nosey human beings, whom they try to avoid as much as possible.

We were about halfway to our destination when someone exclaimed – “There they are!” Indeed, less than a kilometer away, an animal that looked like a cross between a cow and a carabao walked into an open clearing. Behind the beast walked three smaller ones, apparently wards.

Our guide silently ordered us to crouch behind the tall grasses as low as possible and not to move or make any noise. He didn’t have to say it twice -- we were so awestruck we dropped down on all fours for fear of spoiling the moment.

Our caution might have been a little late though. The mother bull started behaving less like the gentle carabao and more like an awakening bull. She struck a pose which told me she was definitely prepared for war – head lowered, horns shifted into a vertical position, head shaking. She appeared ready to charge. Our bodies frozen with fright, we looked at the hostile creature – but it just looked right back at us, for what seemed an eternity! I could swear all four of us were squarely placed in the angry tamaraw’s eyeball. Then, the unbelievable happened. Mother tamaraw started to look like a gentle carabao once more. The fighter-like look in its eyes and stance disappeared. She turned to her youngsters and seemed to tell them (maybe) that we were not worth a fight at after all. She started to lead the young ones further up the mountain. Whew! Good thing the tamaraw is not known to eat humans!

Tamaraws, how do I count thee?

After breathlessly exchanging our impressions on the surprise encounter, we decided to continue on with our climb, craving to see more tamaraw. We climbed, and crawled sometimes, but no longer saw any roaming tamaraw. We finally found ourselves at the TCP’s Magawang station. This was to be our home for another day or two. Inside was a man ---a member of the Bantay Tamaraw team – excitedly and animatedly talking about something to another guy, who turned out to be Rodel Boyles, coordinator of the TCP. It turned out that the Bantay Tamaraw team had just concluded the afternoon count of the tamaraw for that day – and that they had spotted 34 heads in all, an ``encouraging’’ number, as they told us later.

According to Boyles, the TCP uses the Intensive Concentration Count (ICC) method to tally the tamaraws. Eighteen pre-selected observation sites have been established within the 16,000-hectare section of the park where tamaraws are known to exist. Magawang is the major observation point. Armed with their binoculars and spotting scopes, two to three man-teams are then assigned at each site to conduct and record observations for five consecutive days from April 22-26 (the preset study period for the annual count).

A fixed observation time, from 5:30-7:00 AM and from 5:00-6:30 PM, is strictly followed by the tamaraw teams. “We use a pre-structured matrix or data form where we record the number of tamaraws sighted, the exact time of sighting, activity when seen including the direction they are heading when seen running or walking,” Boyles explained. Based on compass readings, the location of the tamaraw that was sighted is then plotted on a map.

Other important features which could help in determining the exact location of the animals were also noted as reference points. These include wallowing areas, rivers, hills, big rock, established trails and bunkhouses, he said.

Mission impossible accomplished

For the next three days, we had a taste of what it was like to be a Bantay Tamaraw volunteer as we enthusiastically participated in the counting activity. After all, it’s not everyday that I get to see these unique creations traveling in herds or grazing in their natural habitat. It amazed me how its small size and great strength enables it to push through dense jungle and climb steep mountains.

We went down the mountain exhilarated from the experience. We knew that only a few have had our experience of watching a beautiful creature roam freely amid man-made dangers like slash and burn farming, hunting through traditional means or the use of home-made shotguns, cattle ranching, timber poaching, among others, all major concerns for the Protected Areas authorities.

Unlike the Philippine eagle, whose beautiful head and figure frequently appeared in books, newspapers and television, the tamaraw has been absent from the limelight for many years, its survival uncertain. Then, in 2002, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared October as Tamaraw Conservation Month in Occidental Mindoro, as embodied in Proclamation No. 273 dated October 14, 2002. Although the Tamaraw Conservation Program has been going on since the 80’s, the proclamation highlighted the earnest effort to protect surviving tamaraws so that they could multiply even more.

To date, a total of 239 tamaraws are still left in the wilds. With a little help from DENR’s conservation program and various pro-environment groups, the tamaraw could still make an amazing comeback in our hearts and eyes – just like the Philippine Eagle.

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This article is a soon-to-be-published feature story of the DENR Public Affairs Office. Check the DENR Website for other related articles. Photos of the tamaraw courtesy of Jaime Lumanglas and the DENR Tamaraw Conservation Program.