Making fish sleep over long flights

For decades scientists have been testing means to ship live fish over long distances and serve fresh as the instant it was caught. The commonest way is putting the catch in aerated water tanks, but is exorbitant. Every kilo of fish needs four kilos of water to survive transport, pushing freight costs four times more for the water that will only be thrown away. Icing the fish hibernates it, but the ice, even at a ratio of two kilos to one of the fish, still adds to the weight that goes to waste. Not even cryogenic or blast freezing is sure-fire: chances of fish coming alive upon defrosting depend on luck.

There had to be a better way, at lowest cost and highest survival rate. And who would find it than a man from an archipelago – not as advanced as Denmark or Japan, but as backward as the Philippines.

Mechanical engineer Bonifacio "Boni" Comandante discovered what he now calls "Buhi" by accident. It was 1987, and he was working with an NGO to teach poor fishermen in Palawan’s Busuanga isles non-destructive ways to fish. All the country’s coasts have been ravaged by dynamite and cyanide fishing. Boni was introducing the islanders to lapu-lapu culture in submerged cages. Replenishing the fingerlings was expensive. He needed to breed adults in captivity. And since all lapu-lapu are female until three years old, when the most dominant may change to male, he experimented how to alter the sex earlier.

Boni spent many long nights in a makeshift lab, injecting specimen with different hormones. Tired at the end of each session, he would toss the fish in a sack in the cooler, then dream of it as next day’s meal. Many times, though, he would open the box in the morning and find the lapu-lapu still breathing. Initially puzzled, he also saw dollar signs in the phenomenon. He worked back on his research, and eliminated the hormones as the secret elixir.

So what was it? "It’s a natural compound, as common as salt, in seawater," Boni whispers, "it works as an anti-stress salt solution." That’s as much as Boni would say of his serendipitous find. Yet it has taken him to heights he never dreamed of: potential million-dollar earnings from world fish shippers, and international awards for invention and business growth.

But first Boni had to perfect his invention and a simplest preparation process to go with it. He took up marine biology at Dumaguete’s Silliman University to learn more about sea creatures. He also read up on various fish-sleeping chemicals, learning for one that anesthetics were banned in most western states because of possible toxic effects on consumers, so he must ensure that his potion isn’t such a poison. He went on experimenting with different fish and noted how Buhi works: putting them in hibernation, it leaves the gills open to suck oxygen directly from the air, not from water. He also observed that bigger fish fall asleep faster, for longer hours, and higher survival rates. Bottom-dwellers sleep longer than middle- or surface feeders. Salt-water fish sleep better than fresh-water varieties. Crustaceans sleep shorter than fish.

As he came close to perfecting Buhi, Boni took up a master’s course in coastal resources management. His thesis naturally was on the blend, and his defense was its public introduction. It became the model thesis of the Philippine Association of Graduate Educators. Boni then joined the First Oriental Negros Innovation Fair and won first prize for it. Galing Pilipino Movement also awarded him Inventor of the Year.

Still, Boni couldn’t go commercial. He first needed to secure a patent against theft of his long years of research. Businessmen in Negros and Manila helped him form Buhi Marine Worldwide Supply Inc. Soon, Australian fish transporters heard about the invention, and shouldered the huge cost of an international patent through a joint venture, Buhi International Group (BIG).

From there, Boni started to hit for the big time. He joined in March the University of San Francisco’s technology competition, besting a hundred other entries for business development. Among the organizers was the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists Association, and they eagerly signed Boni up for orders.

The invention promises to bring down the cost of transporting live fish by at least 75 percent, and make Philippine fish exports to Japan, Korea and Taiwan more competitive. But foreign groups want a piece of the action. For this, Boni has set two rules: one, BIG will remain majority-owned by Filipinos; two, foreigners who want their catch treated with Buhi blend must hire Boni’s technicians in their operations.

"Buhi" in Bicolano and many other Philippine languages means "life". It keeps fish alive out of water from two to 12 hours, depending on size and variety, and will kick life into Philippine fisheries and fishermen’s incomes. Boni, unassuming about the mega-profits he stands to make from Buhi, prefers to talk about its potential lessons for other Filipino technologists, inventors and students. He loves to tell his story if only to inspire others to study and persevere. Fame has not gotten to his head. Boni likes to laugh at himself, saying the reason why he can charm fish into sleeping and waking up on his command is because he’s from the island-province of Siquijor which, he laughs, is fabled to be the home of witches.

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Learn more about Boni’s "Buhi blend" in Linawin natin on Monday, 11 p.m., on IBC-13.

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E-mail: [email protected]