Ethical views??? looking for a little insight

[TSandM]

I think there are two different ethical questions here. One is the removal of artifacts, and the other is the diving of wrecks with substantial loss of life, with a secondary question of casualties of war.

With artifacts, my position is that, if they are of significant historical value, removing them and making them available to archaeologists or historians is appropriate. If there are no unanswered questions about the wreck, and it is not of enough age to make the artifacts valuable for historical understanding, leave them alone. Removing them is no different from chipping fossils out of claybanks at a National Park.

As far as diving wrecks with significant loss of life, or war graves . . . It's a personal decision. I have visited Gettysburg, which was the site of a huge loss of life, and no one thinks that going there and viewing the site is inappropriate. I have also visited Bergen Belsen, and listened to the sadness in the wind there. Of course, the bodies aren't visible . . . but they aren't visible on the Salem Express, a ferry wreck I dove in the Red Sea. A thousand people lost their lives in that accident, and the reminders of those lives and deaths are everywhere, on the sea floor and in the holds. I found the wreck incredibly sad, and I'm not sure I would dive it again, but I don't think there was anything inappropriate about doing so. Had we rifled through the suitcases to find mementos, I would feel very different about it.

I think you dive wrecks with loss of life with respect, but I see no reason not to dive them.

 

[DevonDiver]

do you think that it is ethical to dive into a old are ship and disturb the gave of those sailors?

Not all shipwrecks are graves. Many sank without loss of life. I see no ethic reasons not do dive upon those.

Where a ship is a grave, then I think diving is situational dependant on the individual wreck. Primarily, how long ago the wreck sank. Bodies do not remain on wrecks for long periods of time. If bodies do rest inside wrecks, then they should not be disturbed by divers. That doesn't necessarily preclude diving on the wreck though.

What are the view points of taking items from these ships?

This is very debatable, regardless of whether the wreck is a grave site or not.

This recent/ongoing thread deals with the issue; http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...5-take-only-pictures-just-take-take-take.html

are they for personal gain or historical gain?

There are a number of reasons why divers would take artefacts from wrecks:

1) Archaeological study (old wrecks)
2) Forensic study (cause of sinking etc)
3) Salvage (valuable commodities, commercial recovery - subject to laws on salvage)
4) Identification (searching the name of the ship, via recovered objects)
5) Mementos and Keepsakes (stuff to go on the divers' mantlepiece)

Personal gain could include financial gain (salvage), academic gain (archaeological or historical research papers) or simply some 'fame' in the diving community (identification). It could also include personal satisfaction of some gleaming brass nik-naks on your shelves.

I think the nature of the recovery has to be relative to the individual wreck.

does it even matter?

IMHO, yes.

so any insight or direction where to look up info would be greatly helpful.

Robert Kurson's 'Shadow Divers' is a great book that deals with scuba diving into a war-grave wreck for the purposes of identification.

A search of the board will produce some relevant threads on other wreck diving issues, including specific examples of named wrecks. It covers the divers' personal and self-imposed ethical decisions and also explains the value of identifying the wreck from a historical study perspective and the benefits to the families of those who died upon it.

To easily search the board, just use Google: "site:www.scubaboard.com" + keywords (i.e. wreck, ethics, grave etc)

 

[TopherMcKenzie]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I find value in everything that was mentioned. I have read Shadow Divers and I enjoyed the story very much. Thank you DevonDiver for Board search idea I plan on doing that.

Just so everyone knows I am by any means against wreck diving. I really want to do some however I am in Utah and so I dont have very many close options. I enjoy history and discovering things. I needed to write a paper so why not something that I have a lot of interest in.

SeaCobra do you know where I can find some of the laws and regulations you mentioned?

I agree with the fact that wreck diving does play a big roll in recovering are lost history. I just want to challenge the topic a little

ps thanks JayJudge for catching the spelling error. ha it happens sometimes right.

NO ONE WILL BE QUOTED OR MENTIONED UNLESS YOU GIVE PERMISSION!!

I hope to hear more from you all.

 

[Thalassamania]

I don't get the whole "graves" thing. As I see it dead is dead, and once dead you no longer care about what's left behind. That said, I do follow the law and respect the ideas that moving anything in a wreck deprives divers who have yet to go there of seeing the same thing and potentially obscures future knowledge, so I feel that it should be kept to an absolute minimum.

 

[Saxatilis]

You may find the history and diving record of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald very intresting. Just in case you don't know of it here is a super brief history. The ship was a US registered Great Lakes Freighter launched on June 7, 1958. It sunk on November 10, 1975 with the loss of all 29 sailors. It has been visited several times by subs (ROV's) and even people in Newt suits but the first (and only?) scuba dives were done in 1995. Quite impressive considering that the depth of the wreck is about 520 feet (twice as deep as the Andrea Doria). The ethics come in to play here because there are visible human remains that were documented. You now need a license to go anywhere near this wreck. Here is this the article I pulled the info from: SS Edmund Fitzgerald - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Look under the heading "Underwater Surveys" and "Restrictions on Surveys". Hope you found this useful!

 

[Jared0425]

I'm new to this form also. Here is my humble opinion. If you do find a wreck that does not fall under the 3-12 mile rule, take the the artifacts if you know hownyou are going to preserve them. If you don't, good for you. Remember these things will not last on the bottom forever and they are they are. If life was lost on the wreck, maybe you would donate to the families of the lost. If it is a war grave respect it. I love nautical history and would rather see it in my own home were I can preserve it and display it better than a museum can. Jared

 

[TopherMcKenzie]

I'm new to this form also. Here is my humble opinion. If you do find a wreck that does not fall under the 3-12 mile rule, take the the artifacts if you know hownyou are going to preserve them. If you don't, good for you. Remember these things will not last on the bottom forever and they are they are. If life was lost on the wreck, maybe you would donate to the families of the lost. If it is a war grave respect it. I love nautical history and would rather see it in my own home were I can preserve it and display it better than a museum can. Jared

Thanks Jared and Welcome!

 

[drbill]

I haven't dived wrecks where an individual died and is still within the hull, but I don't think I'd have a problem doing so if I came across such a situation. I'd hope to do it with a bow of respect to anyone who lost their lives in the sinking. And, of course, I'd do just like I do with the fishes and inverts... just take pictures, nothing else.

 

[Jared0425]

Sorry about the bad grammar and misspelling. I think that some wrecks deserve the up most respect when it comes to lives lost. Here on the lakes we don't (and usually cannot) take artifacts off the wrecks here. Freshwater preserves these lost relics for a long time. In the end mother nature will determine the how they go. In the ocean it is a different story. The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 protects much of the wrecks in American waters. Most of Europe, Canada, and Australia, tend to have much tighter regulations on wrecks. I got a little sidetracted when I said about taking artifacts, meaning if the wreck is degrading or endangered, I would think to try and preserve the artifacts IF one has the capability to do so. Take pictures and leave bubbles is a great practice and I agree with it and follow it where the situation is appropriate. When divers see artifacts and touch history there is a great feeling in touching that object that I think divers should enjoy before mother nature destroys it forever. In the end shipwrecks are a great diving experience and divers should enjoy what is on them before nature runs her unstoppable course.
Jared

 

[manni-yunk]

I would be very interested in reading your writen paper! I dive wrecks almost exclusively. Out of NJ we have over 4000 wrecks. Some as old as 200 years - some artifiial. Many with significant historical value - I enjoy reading and researching the history and often think about the loss of life that occured during the sinking.
As to reomving objects - eventually - the ocean will claim it all and destroy it. I would rather see anything with historical value or relevance be retrieved, and preserved (either on a museaum or a mantle) than rotting away on the ocean floor.

Thats just my opinion though and I do understand the other side of the argument.