THINK ON THESE – Lessons from the bones

Where in the world can you find a sperm whale, a piranha, a tarsier, some snakes, birds, and soon an elephant together in one place?
Don’t look further; you can see them all at D’Bone Collector Museum in Bucana, Davao City.  The place is just a walking distance from the Davao City Hall and the San Pedro Parish Church.
If you’re lucky, you get to talk with Darrell Dean Blatchley, an American who speaks Bisaya well.  I had an opportunity of talking with this tall, handsome young man who is married to a Filipina who’s from Davao, during our visit.
“We opened the museum in 2012 with a total of 150 specimens in one-story of the building,” recalls Darrell, who happens to be the museum’s proprietor and curator. (For trivia fanatics: he spends almost half of his life in Davao so he is very familiar with the city.)
Today, the total of animal specimens in the three-story building is more than 2,000 (excluding the shell collection).  Soon, an elephant will be added.  That is, if will be able to raise the money to bring skeleton to the city.
Yes, you read it right.  All the animals are dead and only skeletons of an entire animal or some parts of its bones are displayed in the museum, which has been named by an award-giving body as one of the top 20 Cool Places in Mindanao.
“Our museum is the only one from Davao to make it to the list and we are ranked third,” Darrell says with price. “A group that conduct consultation for museums in Southeast Asia told us that our collection is one of the most extensive they have seen in the region.”
Consider this.  There are more than 100 terrestrial animal species displayed in the museum.  More than 500 aquatic animal species, including dugong and pawikan, can be found inside the museum.
“Of the 3 known whale and dolphin skeletons on display in the Philippines, our museum cleaned and assembled 2 of those,” he says.  “Worldwide there are 83 species of whales and dolphins. The Philippines has 27 and the Davao Gulf alone has at least 18.  On display in the museum are 14 species.”
Collecting bones and skeletons is nothing new.  But using it as a way of educating people in saving the environment is another.  One of those who supported Darrell in his cause was the late councilor Leonardo R. Avilla III.
At one time, Avilla said of Darrell: “Most of us self-professed environmentalists are committed to save the environment – we plant trees, we dispose our garbage properly, we save water, we observed Earth Hour every year.  But Darrell’s way of preserving the environment makes our combined efforts almost trivial.”
Throughout history, bones are the remembrance of a life’s existence.  “For me, bones are the ultimate learning tool,” Darrell says.  “So much can still be learned upon death. It tells you the life of the animal; whether it had a good life (healthy bones) or a hard life (cracked and deformed bones).”
Among those being displayed are a 41-foot long sperm whale and bones of Grizzly bear.  Bones and skeletons of snakes, tarsier, marine turtles, various fish species, different sizes of the mouths of sharks, and birds abound.
“Each group that goes to the museum gets a tour about the animals found in each of the displays.  One of the things we show to them is how some of the animals have died due to humans throwing garbage into the ocean or canals and how these kill the whales and dolphins,” Darrell explains.
Every animal displayed has a story.  There’s Mercy, a dwarf sperm whale, which died in a fish net.  “She was still alive when the fishermen found her but they killed her thinking she was a shark that got tangled in their net,” Darrell says.  “When she was dead and they realized that she wasn’t something valuable or edible, they threw her back into the sea.  When we recovered her, we discovered she was pregnant.”
Another one is a false killer whale named Alcoholic because he was found dead with a bottle of alcoholic beverage inside the stomach.  Another marine mammal died from a piece of plastic wrapper.
All in all, about 37 whales and dolphins on display that died due to garbage (mostly plastic like candy wrapper), trapped in fishing nets, dynamite fishing, and loss of food in their habitat.
A lot of the animals found in the museum are very seldom seen. “That for me is sad,” Darrell says. “It is because of human neglect, waste, carelessness, over harvesting, or greed that they are now endangered.  I want people to know this fact before these species would be gone forever.”
Awareness campaign is what Darrell is doing. “You don’t have to stop a whaling ship to save one of these animals,” he says.  “Just by properly throwing away your garbage, you can save one.  It takes only two steps to the garbage can or doing nothing by throwing the plastic bag on the ground.  By not buying that endangered parrot which the poacher has for sale outside the mall is another. Little things like these that when you add them all make a huge difference.”
Indeed, Blatchley is making a huge difference among Filipinos.  An American citizen (he was born in the United States), he spent his childhood in Thailand. When he was 15, the family moved to the Philippines, where his parents work helping poverty-stricken and displaced children in Davao City through the Family Circus Children’s Ministries (FCCM).
Although he is the owner of the museum, he still works with his parents as youth pastor. “Working in the museum is dealing with dead animals.  But with young people, I am dealing with real people who can still be taught,” Darrell says.
Some of the young people even work with them. “We have a boarding house that we currently have six of our teens living in,” he says.  Some of the children who come to the FCCM have no family to speak of; others may have been kicked out from their own homes.  “By working with them, they are given training in life that they would not get elsewhere.  They are taught self-respect, discipline, and financial management.”
Darrell, however, sees his work with the bone museum as not that noble.  “God cares for His animals and we humans should take care of His creations,” he says.  “But the most important thing is still our fellow beings.  The museum merely teaches us to be good stewards of what is around us.”
At the museum, you don’t only get to see those bones and skeletons but you also get to know how to care for our environment.
Entrance fee is P70 for children and students and P80 for adults. It is open from Mondays to Fridays, from 8 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.