The study and associated computer work was not assisted in any way by the excessive humidity of the rainy season here. At this time (Nov-March - Amihan - NW Monsoon season) it's not unusual to get over 30cm of rain in a day - you can reach out of the window, grab a handful of air and squeeze out enough pure water to adequately dilute a double Scotch

The fish are named in the local Surigaonon dialect, spoken on Siargao island and in Surigao Del Norte and Surigao Del Sur, the NE provinces of Mindanao, the nearest 'mainland'.  So far, I have noted another 50 or so species caught occasionally, and a number of other seafood resources, such as molluscs (including cephalopods such as octopus and squid), crustaceans, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and seaweeds (see Philippine Caviare)

Problem: How to identify the species each local name represents? I don't have a portable field guide, and anyway, it would be some time before I could expect to see all these fish in the market, let alone others well-known but rarely caught.

The only 'Field Guide' I have is an anonymous poster showing 100 Marine Fishes of Thailand, with Thai, Latin and English names. I was able to show the poster to local fishermen, and thus work back to the local names; we have about 50 or so species in common, or fairly closely related. But what of the other 100 or so species? Well, many may just have to remain unidentified - after all, this is not an ichthyological study, but a social one.

Map source: http://www.multimap.com/

The Sulu Islands have always been a haunt of 'pirates'.  (In 2001, a group of tourists was kidnapped for ransom from Sipadan Island just near Semporna). The Sulus were never fully conquered by either Spanish or Americans. To this day, they remain an area of local 'troubles' or 'international terrorism' depending on whether you take a sensible view, or that of G.W.Bush's government.

'Considering that the Moros today constitute a body of Muslims more numerous than the populations of either Kuwait or Libya and that they occupy an area larger than Denmark, this...scarcely does them justice'. For more on Moros - see Kris and Crescent - but this was written in 1965 - 40 years later the struggle goes on.

The Sulus form the top LH side (with Borneo) of one of the Celebes Sea, one of the most productive in the world - a centre of diversity for coral, invertebrates, fish and other sea species. (A coelacanth was recently caught off Sulawesi - the first for maybe about 200 million years, and the only one found anywhere else but Madagascar). 

Bounded NW by Borneo and the Sulus, S by Celebes/Sulawesi and E  by the Moluccas, it is the true 'Golden Triangle' for marine life. Even in glacial maxima, when sea levels were lowered by about 100m, this sea was very much there and fruitful. 

The Sulus are also part of the homeland of the Samal and Badjau, boat-faring people who have been carrying on the same 'floating' lifestyle for at least 7000 years. They still 'carry on as usual' all around SE Asia, from Okinawa to the Mergui islands off Burma. They may be the sole surviving remnants of the great Nusantao trading network of SE Asia that brought spices to Arabia, perhaps  bananas/plantains to West Africa, megaliths to Western Europe, and perhaps brought home camote/kumara sweet potatoes from Meso-America.  (Search Solheim, Nusantao) . 

Also see Paul Kekai Manansala's fascinating web log tracing the voyages and influence of the Nusantao trading network.

Right: One morning's catch from a spear fisherman - the bucket contains:

Small trevally
Zebra shark
Cuttlefish

For instance, they recommend: 
Fish stocks in Bohol are depleted by commercial fishing which encourages total harvest of fish, i.e., including the spawners. Thus, banning it outright from municipal waters is a must. The use of FADs should only be in combination with hook and line and small nets. Superlights or lightboats should also be banned totally.

But this comes from 1st Worlders,  who have themselves destroyed the fish harvest of the North Sea, and within a generation have almost entirely destroyed the fabulous stocks of cod off Newfoundland, that previously supported perhaps 7 centuries of fishing, so productive that salt cod (bacalao) was, until recently, a staple food for much of West Africa.
Rhythms of the Sea   

The Semporna Project listed just the following:

But I think these were potential ways of catching the fish, rather than actual observation. 


    

Two small boys with a nylon net and their catch of tiddlers
(Tayad and Latab)

There are a lot more methods in use in my town. Some date back thousands of years, if not a million or two.

Alimang is a takay (trolling) fisherman at a floating payaw (fish attracting device) about 15 km out in the Pacific Ocean.

"Other fine-mesh nets include the beach seines and those that are used for catching small species that do not grow beyond a certain size, e.g. bulinaw (anchovies).These nets are also used to catch tagum-tagum or kuyug (siganid or rabbitfish juveniles), lap-ot (anchovy juvenile) and other species that aggregate during full moon and at certain times of the year usually affected by tidal rhythms. These fishes are highly priced because they taste best as kinilaw (raw fish salad) or are processed into ginamos of the best quality. Ginamos is salted fish and eaten as appetizer or as main dish. Fine-mesh nets are also used to catch shrimp fry (uyap) which is a popular topping for green mango.

Liba-liba (seine net with scaring device), palakaya (baby trawl) and lawag (fine-mesh lift net) are common ..... They are not only destructive but they also catch juvenile fish. The method involves the use of a seine with a scaring line. 

Also popularly known as ring-ring, de-ring, hulbot-hulbot or kubkob, it normally operates from very shallow areas up to depths of 50m depending on the size of the net. Requiring very little manpower, larger units of this efficient technique can sweep an area of up to 17 ha per fishing trip. Because of its fine mesh, liba-liba catches large amounts of juveniles and trashfish that do not have a ready market. It also scrapes the bottom of the sea thus causing turbidity, and catches a lot of invertebrates including eggs of squid and cuttlefishes, as well as useless by-catch such as seagrasses, sponge, corals and many others. This degrades the actual soft-bottom communities. (The catch) averages about 5 kg per hour. (Perhaps P40x5  = $4 per hour - shared among 3-4 men).

Palakaya is commonly used in seagrass and soft-bottom areas. It is a net held with 2 plywood ‘otter boards’ at the back of a motorized boat. The trawl normally has a ‘cod-end’ or a small bag made of mosquito net (net with very fine mesh) that catches the juvenile fishes, shrimps and other small organisms. The net scrapes and damages the bottom areas, and catches too many juveniles and trash. Palakaya and liba-liba were introduced by BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries & Agriculture) during the late 1970s as a "more efficient" fishing method to be used by communities to enhance their livelihood."

This was the same generation of US-educated civil servants who brought about the Coconut Bank Scam

A similar type of trawl was used until recently off Dapitan, in NW Mindanao. Someone (in 2001) discovered that a certain rare cone shell (Conus pergrandis), then selling for $500 each, was almost abundant on the muddy bottom. Within months, more than 50 boats were trawling for this shell, and the price, when I last heard of it, had dropped below $3 each.

"Storage chemicals. Because of the high daytime temperatures in Bohol, a few fishing operators and fish buyers use chemicals (usually diluted formalin) instead of ice to prolong the storage life of the fish albeit giving off a slight smell. Others use a dye locally known as indigo to create a fresher and bluer or more purple look for pelagic fish so that they can demand a higher market price. Both are highly detrimental, with formalin literally "pickling" one's innards." Rhythms of the Sea