seadoggirl:
Actually, she died prior to her eggs hatching and yes now both Octopus (Charolette and Gracie) are dead from overly friendly divers. Gracie was stabbed by a diver, a local DM witnessed it but the guy was from another boat. None of the eggs hatched. Very sad we can't just leave them alone and enjoy watching.
Lucky for us, there's no shortage of larval octopi in the plankton to fill the gap, and the O'Boat should have plenty.
But...
This killing of octopi on their hatch is a bad and sad situation. Without mom to aerate and protect them, the eggs will quickly be eaten by crabs & fish, and tens of thousands of larvae will never enter the plankton - right now it's a habitat limited system (there are plenty of larvae to populate any available habitat), but if we kill enough egg-sitting females we can change the balance and screw up the population.
So,
WE need to get the word out at the local level, before folks ever go to the ocean, that octopi with eggs are not to be bothered. I suspect that the divers messing with these octopi were ignorant of the presence of eggs in both cases, so we need to show pictures of what egg masses look like, and emphasize how to look for them.
There's a real easy way to tell if an octopus is ok to play with - if the octopus comes out to play, fine. If it stays in its lair and shows no interest in you, leave it alone. Moms on eggs aren't playful; leave 'em be.
Even if you're harvesting octopus for food, check for eggs & leave 'em be when eggs are there. Killing sitting moms is killing the golden goose.
The loss of these two with eggs reveals a
GREAT GAP IN OW TRAINING!
Rick
