Philippine Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary (Corella)

Overview

The Philippine Tarsier & Wildlife Sanctuary in Corella is a forest reserve spanning 134 to 167 hectares across the municipalities of Corella, Sikatuna, and Loboc. It was established by the Philippine Tarsier Foundation in partnership with DENR and local communities as a conservation site, not a commercial attraction. Over 500 Philippine tarsiers live and breed naturally within this secondary-growth forest.

Unlike roadside tarsier displays or facilities that allow handling, Corella’s sanctuary operates under strict rules: no flash photography, no touching, no close-approach shooting. The animals roam free through native trees, bamboo, and undergrowth rather than being staged for a photo — the habitat they depend on, not a backdrop for one. The better-known of those roadside operations is the tarsier viewing area in Loboc, a separate business where animals are held in a small fenced plot beside the road and stay on display through daylight hours. The two are regularly confused in tour itineraries and in online write-ups. They are not the same site and are not run by the same people.

The site includes the Tarsier Research and Development Center, a visitor center at Barangay Cancatac approximately 3 km from Corella town proper, where tarsiers are also observed through an enclosed monitoring area for breeding and research.

The legal footing is specific. Proclamation No. 1030, signed by President Fidel V. Ramos on 23 June 1997, declared the Philippine tarsier a specially protected faunal species: hunting, killing and possession are prohibited, and possession is permitted only on certification by the DENR Secretary for educational, scientific or conservation research. The Philippine Tarsier Foundation had been registered as a non-stock, non-profit corporation the year before, in 1996. The forest the trail crosses is public land under DENR administration rather than property the foundation owns — the sanctuary is a management arrangement over existing forest, not a purchased estate.

Location

Barangay Cancatac, Corella, Bohol. The sanctuary entrance is along the Corella-Sikatuna road, approximately 2 km from Corella town center. The forest trail extends across Corella, Sikatuna, and Loboc municipalities.

Getting There

• Private vehicle: Most direct option; parking available at the sanctuary entrance
• Organized tour: Most Bohol countryside tour packages include a Corella sanctuary stop
• Tricycle/habal-habal: Negotiate from Tagbilaran City (approximately ₱300–500 round trip)
• Public transport: Jeepney to Corella town, then tricycle to the sanctuary — slower but lower cost

The sanctuary is approximately 20 minutes from Tagbilaran City by road.

Practical Info

• Operating hours: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Best viewing window: 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM (tarsiers sleep during the day but remain visible in resting spots)
• Guided walks: approximately 90 minutes to 2 hours; maximum group size of 10 to minimize disturbance
• Entrance fee: ₱60 per person, per the Philippine Tarsier Foundation’s own visitor information — the organization that established and operates this sanctuary. Note this file’s stated hours (8:00 AM–5:00 PM) differ from the Foundation’s own published hours (9:00 AM–4:00 PM) elsewhere in this database; both are sourced but not reconciled here.
• The Tarsier Research and Development Center (visitor center) has documentary screenings, photo exhibitions, an eco-friendly souvenir shop, and a refreshment area
• Vehicles stop at the parking area; nothing motorised goes past it, so the visitor center and trail are reached on foot

Rules all visitors must follow:

• No touching, holding, or attempting contact with tarsiers
• No flash photography or bright lights
• No loud conversations or sudden movements
• Maintain at least 1-metre distance at all times
• Stay on designated trail paths with a guide

Tarsiers have extremely sensitive nervous systems; stress from noise, bright light, or physical contact can cause cardiac arrest.

What to Expect

The sanctuary’s 15-km Tarsier Trail winds through mahogany groves, bamboo forests, native ficus trees, and fern-covered undergrowth across Corella, Sikatuna, and Loboc. Guides know the tarsiers’ preferred resting locations.

Along the trail, visitors can observe:

• Wild tarsiers at natural resting spots
• Birds including serpent eagles, native owls, and woodpeckers
• Signage identifying plants with scientific names, geographic origins, and traditional uses
• Viewpoints overlooking the Loboc River area

At the visitor center, an orientation video (approximately 15 minutes) covers tarsier behavior and conservation context before the trail walk begins. A 100-tarsier enclosed monitoring area near the center houses animals for captive breeding, feeding, and protection from predators and poachers. That enclosure sits inside an 8.4-hectare parcel the foundation acquired and fenced in Corella — the one piece of ground here that the foundation actually holds, and the reason feral cats and poachers can be kept out of it while the animals inside still move between trees.

The field supervisor, Carlito Pizarras, is from Corella and has looked after the enclosure since the late 1990s. When taxonomists split the Philippine tarsier out of the genus Tarsius in 2010, they named the new genus Carlito after him. Guides work the trail in small groups and know that tarsiers take only live prey, mostly insects — the forest’s insect load is part of what holds the population in place.

Recommended visit sequence: orientation video → educational displays → guided forest trail → refreshments and souvenir shop

Notes

• Dry season (December–May) offers the most comfortable trail conditions; the sanctuary remains open during light rain but heavy downpours can temporarily close forest trails
• Morning visits (8:00–10:00 AM) often coincide with tarsiers settling into daytime resting spots
• Peak tourism months (December–February) may require advance booking due to visitor quotas
• [NOTE: area is cited as both 134 ha and 167 ha across primary sources]
• The Corella Church of Nuestra Señora del Villar (built 1924) is nearby and relevant to heritage visitors
• The sanctuary is recognized as a critical habitat by the government; Corella and neighboring municipalities have been formally declared tarsier sanctuary zones
• Conservation status, since tourism copy gets this wrong routinely: the Philippine tarsier (Carlito syrichta) is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, not Endangered. Its stronger protection in the Philippines comes from national law — Proclamation No. 1030 (1997) — rather than from its IUCN category
• This entry, philippine-tarsier-foundation-inc.md, and philippine-tarsier-sanctuary.md all describe the same Corella facility/organization (the Philippine Tarsier Foundation, Inc. and the site it operates), at different levels of detail; kept as separate files per the source inventory rather than merged. Multiple independent sources (PTFI’s own materials, Wikipedia) place the Foundation’s sanctuary in Barangay Canapnapan rather than Barangay Cancatac as stated earlier in this file — flagged here as an unresolved barangay-name discrepancy, not corrected, since neither name could be independently confirmed as the error.
• Visiting the Tarsiers – Philippine Tarsier Foundation, Inc., accessed 2026-07-17.
• Philippine Tarsier Foundation – Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-17.
• Proclamation No. 1030, s. 1997 – Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, accessed 2026-08-20.
• Philippine Tarsier, Carlito syrichta – New England Primate Conservancy, accessed 2026-08-20.
• Legacy ## In depth section removed 2026-08-20 — unsourced scraped prose, brochure phrasing throughout, and contradicting the researched sections on the resident population (it gives 200 in one passage and 500 in another), on the nearby Corella church (it names an 18th-century Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception rather than Nuestra Señora del Villar, 1924), and on the founding of the Philippine Tarsier Foundation (it credits Carlito Pizarras with establishing it in the early 1990s; the Foundation was registered in 1996 by other incorporators, and Pizarras joined as field supervisor in 1998). Salvaged into the sections above: Proclamation No. 1030 and the Foundation’s 1996 registration and DENR land arrangement, plus the Loboc roadside contrast (Overview); the 8.4-hectare fenced parcel, Carlito Pizarras and the 2010 naming of the genus Carlito, and the live-prey diet (What to Expect); the no-vehicles-past-the-parking-area rule (Practical Info); the IUCN listing (Notes). Unverified claims from the removed block, not carried over and worth a later check: that tarsiers here live in “mini-colonies of three to ten adults”, that trail guides are volunteer college students from Tagbilaran City, a stated dress rule against bright colours and strong perfume, a seven-foot fence height on the enclosure, Busay Falls and a Loboc River swim as trail endpoints, and Corella Rice Terraces as a nearby attraction.