Is that a guide handling an octopus?

[boulderjohn]

We voted them in on August 19th, 2009. That does not mean that everyone follows them, there is no force or law.

I was there and saw the octopus harassment two months before that.

 

[Shaka Doug]

Well Put Mr. BoulderJohn!

 

[rgbmatt]

When I was in Belize I saw a DM scare a puffer fish into puffing, which endangers that fish. I expressed my dissatisfaction strongly to the operator, which no longer exists.

Off topic, but usually puffers aren't injured just by puffing up under normal circumstances. What's really dangerous is if you take the puffer out of the water the wrong way, it will try to puff but will swallow air instead of water. Often they can't spit out all the air and end up with a bubble in their stomach that can be very harmful - sometimes even fatal. They can also be injured if they're manhandled too much while inflated, so if a puffer inflates by accident it's importent to be gentle with it.

In fact, puffers in captivity will often inflate by themselves once in a while - apparently as a sort of exercise or "practice" if you can call it that. They do this in the wild too, but since it doesn't happen very often it's easier to observe this behavior in an aquarium.

However, it's still not nice to scare puffers into blowing up.

. . .

As for the octopus, it's probably OK to play with them to an extent - they're intelligent creatures and need a certain about of stimulation to stay happy. But, if the octopus is trying to escape and you have to grab it forcefully to restrain it, that's going too far.

The local attitude is that tako are a food source. As such, tako hassling is something that's frowned upon if it's done in a way that would harm the animal (ie it would take it away from somebody who wants to eat it later).

The thing about fishing vs hassling marine life on dive tours is that they're different sorts of impacts. Dive tours typically visit the same spot every day, often multiple times. If every DM hassled the marine life on every dive, the fish would leave or become skittish and the area would suffer as a dive spot. Meanwhile, fishermen will remove some marine life, but in most cases they don't visit their areas nearly as often so their cumulative impact is different.

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

I suppose guides, in order to please everyone, should just hang back and point at stuff. I've picked them up, shook them, bitten their heads and taken them home to eat. I must be a monster.

 

[Thalassamania]

I was there and saw the octopus harassment two months before that.

I am sure that it still goes on, hopefully at a greatly reduced level. The big advantage to the current standards is not that most of the guides read them, its that it gives one an easier less confrontational way open the conversation when something like that is observed, and failing the creation of a teachable moment, there is the fact that most all of the owners signed off on it.

 

[mala]

i often find if you tell the guides on day 1 they wont get a tip if they molest the widlife works really well.

 

[boulderjohn]

I suppose guides, in order to please everyone, should just hang back and point at stuff.

It won't please everyone, but it will please me.

I've picked them up, shook them, bitten their heads and taken them home to eat. I must be a monster.

If you do those things while you're the DM on my dive, then I'll be going with a different operator after that. I am sure you will make other people happy, though, so please yourself.

 

[Thalassamania]

...
If you do those things while you're the DM on my dive, then I'll be going with a different operator after that. I am sure you will make other people happy, though, so please yourself.

That is the traditional way to kill an octopus that you have caught and intend to take home for dinner. Perhaps not sufficiently PC for some, but that is how it is done.

 

[boulderjohn]

That is the traditional way to kill an octopus that you have caught and intend to take home for dinner. Perhaps not sufficiently PC for some, but that is how it is done.

And if you want to do that while you are hunting for your dinner, that's fine. I don't care. I don't want to watch you hunt for dinner while I am paying you to conduct a dive, though. In that case, you are working for me, and you should be doing the job I am paying you to do, not going off on a personal food search.

 

[Thalassamania]

Shouldn't be doing it on scuba either.

I hear that here's a law up for a vote to ban commercial aquarium collection as well as spearfishing with scuba (actually, possession of speared fish, a speargun and scuba gear, all at the same time). The Ka`u Calendar News Briefs, Hawai`i Island: Jan 19, 2012