Flora & Fauna - Tawilis

Tawilis is the only fish of Clupeidae family or Sardinella (Sardines) that exists in freshwater. Scientifically known as Freshwater Sardinella, the Tawilis is exclusively found in the Philippines. Found only at the 3rd largest lake of the Philippines, a lake of a volcano called Taal, the Tawilis is believed to be an evolution of a marine specie that adopts a freshwater environment. The history tells that Taal lake used to be an extension of Balayan Bay which is purely marine in nature, but a major eruption of Taal volcano in 18th century sealed the lake from the sea, trapping many species is the lake. Tawilis is suspected as one of them.

Growing up to 15cm for about 30g, the Tawilis had became common to the Filipinos especially in the CALABARZON area, thus delicacies for this very fish have now lots of varieties. From tuyo or dried fish, to paksiw (stewed/simmered in vinegar) and to deep fried, wherein it is cooked until it became very soft to the point of what do Filipinos say as kain lahat or everything is edible even the fishbone.

The only sad part is, the Tawilis is slowly becoming to be an endangered specie, as fishpens in the Taal lake that fastly increasing in number is causing a big impact on our very fish. The fishpens creates competition between the natural residence of the lake and the new comers bred for commercial purposes, not just in foods but also in air, thus creating lots of fish kill incidences. Also, the unregulated commercial trading could be a huge cause of decrease in numbers of Tawilis. Sad but true, all we can do is pray that authority will soon open their eyes and realize that they have to control and regulate the reasons of Tawilis' threat.