Lessons to be learned....

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I try my best to avoid touching Live Coral. Touching Dead Coral, well as long as one knows the difference, I'd rather push off the dead coral (so touch it) than land on the live coral if I have that decision to make. I don't advocate breaking dead coral off for a treasure. If you want dead coral, it can be collected on any good shell beach. My son found so much at Boca, I had to tell him that he could only keep a couple pieces.

As for sand, I've read no studies that indicate that contact by humans, or anything else kills the micro Bacteria and organisms that live in sand. If I need to stand, or kneel on something... it's going to be sand.

For animals that is a much harder line to draw. In some area's there are rules, and one should follow them. Where there are not rules, well, what is better, touching a fish, or spearing it :11:

I grew up on the OR coast, poking Sea Anenome in tidel pools, picking up live star fish, harvesting and eating mussles, fish, Dungenous Crab, clams, and oysters. We never did anything to actively destroy the tidel pools, or starfish, but can't say the same about the food we caught :D This was in the 60's.

I have a difficult time making decisions on how others should treat wildlife, so I will just follow my own good sense, and the law. I don't feed bears, racoons, but we do feed hummingbirds, and birds in winter. I don't touch coral, but I have touched UW creatures. Fish have a slime coat that protects them, so I don't seek contact with them, but I did brush a finger nail down the side of a Spade Fish that was rather friendly recently.

One fish (Damselfish) attacked my on three seperate dives on Two different Reefs!!! Those little rascles bit my fingers three different times while in the Keys. I was ready to do more than pet that little guy! Boy do they have guts, guess someone should tell them the rules about touching US!! :11: Some may not have my restraint. The first time it happened I just about jumped out of my WebSuit... Now that could have been a reef damanging thing!
 
we perceive it to be immoral to cause harm to a sentient life for no other purpose than to obtain personal gratification

Well some do any way.


As to the link, I think we are talking about two different things. I am not sure pain is the real problem when it comes to touching, whereas stress is. If you have ever kept a fish tank, you will surely agree that stress on the fish will cause them to float quicker than anything. Same goes for the catch and release of sport fish. Handling them along with the stress will remove the slime coat, allow for more parasitic infections and worst case, make them float.

http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/474fs.pdf.
http://www.fishsa.com/SARFAC-HandlingFish.pdf.
http://www.fishingnetwork.net/candr.shtml

Any hoo, I just wanted to chime in with my two cents. I'll be in Cozumel in two weeks and I don't want everyone to run all the fishy's off before I get there.

Was that playing nice enough? :)
 
we perceive it to be immoral to cause harm to a sentient life for no other purpose than to obtain personal gratification.

Under the most widely accepted definition of sentience (intelligent self awareness), most sea creatures aren't sentient.
 
Cozoholic:
During another dive I saw the mother touching an anenome showing her son how it retracts...They are teaching him that its ok to touch the coral.

Last week a DM tried to get my 10 year old son to touch an anemone, but my son wouldn't. Later on the boat, the DM explained the anemone wouldn't hurt him. His reply was that he wasn't at all worried that it would, but rather that it wasn't allowed to touch anything on the reefs in Cozumel. The DM didn't have much of a reply to that.
 
"Don't touch the sand".........oh my.......that's taking Political correctness a bit to anal sensitive, IMHO..........

MY GOD, YOU'RE TOUCHING THE WATER TOO???? QUICK, get out get out get out!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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