Observing versus touching

[cb5150]

I personally consider any dive where contact was made with any living coral, fish, or crustacean to be a failure and an opportunity to improve my diving skills for the future. On the other hand, I agree that with the stated opinion that the sum total of all worldwide recreational scuba impact pales in comparison to even one small nation's commercial fishing impact. But that doesn't mean we can't set a good example.

It's never made sense to me at all how you have this group of people (divers) who are fascinated with the beauty and complexity of the undersea world, and then they get off the boat and go have lobster and grouper for dinner. It's not like I think lobstering or spearing or even commercial fishing is morally wrong, but how can you have a true sense of wonder about undersea animals and then also enjoy killing them and eating them. I've always been in the extreme minority on this, and that's fine, but it just never made sense. I've never touched (or eaten) an undersea animal on purpose for as long as I've been an adult, and I never will.

The fact that eating food (fish and other assorted critters) does not make sense to you...does not make sense to me. Different strokes for different folks.

I think cows grazing in a lush green pasture are beautiful. I also think they are delicious. I love diving alongside beautiful reef squid and snapper. I also love them deep fried and broiled.

If I could eat seafood for every meal, I would. If I could dive every day, I would.

 

[Hank49]

It's never made sense to me at all how you have this group of people (divers) who are fascinated with the beauty and complexity of the undersea world, and then they get off the boat and go have lobster and grouper for dinner. It's not like I think lobstering or spearing or even commercial fishing is morally wrong, but how can you have a true sense of wonder about undersea animals and then also enjoy killing them and eating them. I've always been in the extreme minority on this, and that's fine, but it just never made sense. I've never touched (or eaten) an undersea animal on purpose for as long as I've been an adult, and I never will.

So you're pro aquaculture then? Nice. Come on down and I'll buy you a beer or two.

 

[Joe Underwater]

You're not being uptight. Touching marine life may not always be harmful to it, but it certainly doesn't provide any benefit to the animal. It is one of my biggest pet peeves. Here in southeast Asia we have an organisation called Green Fins, actually a UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) that, among other things, provides a code of conduct for reef users. I volunteer with this program and our shop is a participating member. We have wall posters in all our offices, classrooms and boats, and I try to ensure all our staff brief our guests on the program before entering the water. It's an excellent but underfunded program. In my opinion participation in it should be compulsory.

Greenfins-Thailand​

 

[DaleC]

I can't argue with strategies to mitigate the harm done by an influx of people to a natural setting but I'd argue that preventing the influx would be the most environmentally conscious thing you could do. Any thoughts on minimizing business or turning away poor skilled divers so that a strain is not put on the reef system?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

... my thought is that won't happen. The influx of new divers from emerging economic countries like China demonstrates the current trend. When I was in the Maldives I was appalled by the amount of destruction these divers were doing ... and the fact that so many of them looked like they'd simply purchased a c-card without any training at all. The ones that weren't walking across the bottom were crawling on their hands and knees ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[drrich2]

Many deer hunters admire deer and consider them beautiful, but gun down and eat them occasionally. I imagine duck hunters have a somewhat similar attitude. That said, I tend to avoid eating grouper since I got further into diving.

DAN's Dive Alert magazine had an article awhile back on the observer effect. To paraphrase and make relevant to here, you jump into the sea over a reef, swoop down spewing bubbles and making a lot of racket, cruise over the reef frightening creatures into fleeing into their holes, interrupting predator hunting routines, frightening parents off nests to flee or accost you - leaving those eggs unguarded against predators for a moment, driving creatures into 'breaking their cover' of camouflage fleeing (think peacock flounder or octopus fleeing from you), and interrupt the routine of dozens of creatures on your 50 minute reef dive...

...then you look over and see your buddy reach out and touch a finger to a sea turtle's shell.

The horror! That nature disrespecting wildlife molesting sorry excuse for humanity unworthy of a C-card...

Now, for the most part, I believe hands off is nearly always a good policy, and usually the best. If every 10th diver tries to chase and touch a sea turtle, antagonize a puffer into puffing, flip a conch over to see if it can right itself, etc..., then that's going to add up to a lot of harassment over time. So I'm not endorsing that.

But let's be clear that all of us who dive are impacting the marine environment to some extent. Hopefully transient and negligent, but we do.

You will not harm a fish or coral by brushing against it, this happens all the time in the natural setting.

This is an issue I'd like to see followed up on here. I saw a diagram and description contradicting you on the coral example. To paraphrase a bit, let's say you and I dive together and swim down to a large brain coral. I take the side of my hand and press the brain coral. I am, per the diagram I saw, crushing polyps against the hard calcium carbonate coral 'skeleton,' and now there's a dead patch on the brain coral.

So, we come back 10 years later, dive down and find it. Is that dead patch still there? Do neighboring polyps reproduce and cover the patch, like skin on your arm healing a cut?

Am I being too uptight about this or is there anything else I could do to get him to stop?

Sometimes the good part of adulthood is you get to be one. Sometimes the bad part is other people do, too. You can express your ideas as persuasively as you can, but you cannot control what other people do. Anymore than a vegetarian or PETA member is going to talk me out of cheeseburgers.

Richard.

 

[Hank49]

I take the side of my hand and press the brain coral. I am, per the diagram I saw, crushing polyps against the had calcium carbonate coral 'skeleton,' and now there's a dead patch on the brain coral.

So, we come back 10 years later, dive down and find it. Is that dead patch still there? Do neighboring polyps reproduce and cover the patch, like skin on your arm healing a cut?


Richard.

In ten years it will look different. Worse if over diving or whatever continues, but better if left alone.

The big El Nino of 1998 killed a lot of coral around Boracay, Philipines. By late 1999 you could see the recovery starting. Small coral species where growing again in some of the devastated….I mean wiped out….areas. It does come back if death wasn't from pollution or some factor that continues to get worse.