Possible southern reef closure

[Mike Walker]

I'd be afraid of surprising a cat when I grabbed a tail, and they can turn fast!

I've never been able to read horses. I just make sure they know where I am and hope they don't decide I'm an annoyance... won't go near cattle without at least a fence between.

And yes, with cats tails, 'play with' is much different than 'grab' - most seem to like the first, almost none like the second.

I have been fairly close up with the business end of an eel when a different instabuddy decided to play with it's tail that was sticking out the other side of the coral.
Again, nothing more than a finger tip gently pushing it back and forth. Was it 'harmed' by this interaction? I don't know....
Fortunately it decided on flight over fight.

There definitely is a difference in what is 'good' behavior when interacting with pets vs. livestock vs. wildlife. Without exposure to each (and particularly seeing them at their worst) it's easy to act inappropriately. The smarter the creature that harder it is to decide - I genuinely believe that something like an octopus is intelligent enough and curious enough to be able to benefit from direct interaction ('play') with a human. Similarly for dolphins and several other creatures. As long as the interaction is not producing stress I can see it as being a good thing.

Personally, however, I like all 10 of my fingers equally, so I tend to go with 'no touching' for the wildlife category. But I might make an exception for a particularly curious creature.

While this discussion is not directly tied to the damage to coral that is the focus of this thread it is relevant to the overall understanding of why different people do different things underwater. I do maintain that some 'back seat divers' need to tone down their 'tsk tsk'ing of any diver who does not behave exactly as they deem to be acceptable.

Winning the battle for lowering impact will always be about improving averages rather than chasing outliers. Getting everyone to clip off their octos/spgs will do far more good than destroying the gear of stick wielding texans or going all Abu Ghraib zappity-zap on anyone that shows up with a camera.

 

[DandyDon]

I've never been able to read horses. I just make sure they know where I am and hope they don't decide I'm an annoyance... won't go near cattle without at least a fence between.

I was at some state park some years back, in Oklahoma I think, and went with the kids & grandkids to the horse coral for some reason. We weren't planning to ride, but want to look I guess. They were taking tourists on rides, any tourists, and had started their return approaching in a lane when several took off in uncontrolled runs coming home! I left the family watching granddad as I climbed over the fence to stop the stampede, which I managed well. Amazingly, none of the guides said anything to me when they arrived, but just helped children off of their excited horses, then immediately put new families on the same horses. I feared the worst but didn't stay for the next show.

I share your approach to cattle when I come in contact with longhorns. Never worked any of them and have no idea how an interaction would go. Six foot horn spans are so impressive.. I leave wild animals alone generally, especially the giant octopus I found sleeping in a crevice in Puget Sound. She might have been protecting eggs, I don't know, but I didn't want to invite her to play.

I remember a shore dive south of town in Cozumel once, looking at tires on the channel floor for life hiding, found a banded shrimp on one, and my buddy stuck his arm out to see if it'd clean it. Then the shrimp's partner the eel came out. I guess the shrimp was attracting fish, the eel was ambushing, and the shrimp got the particles that would fly. I hate that I hadn't bothered to take my camera.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I was at some state park some years back, in Oklahoma I think, and went with the kids & grandkids to the horse coral for some reason. . . .

Horse coral? Well, at least we're getting back on topic now.

 

[Mike Walker]

Horse coral?

Horse coral:

 

[ChuckP]

I don't see that post on the Cozumel4You Facebook page anymore. I wonder if Scuba Club threatened the admin?

I posted on it so I’d see other posts, wondered why it was quite - whom evers boat that is has some explaining to do

 

[deepsea21]

Horse coral?

I believe this is "Horse Coral".

 

[horn34]

I posted on it so I’d see other posts, wondered why it was quite - whom evers boat that is has some explaining to do

Did they ID the diver/DM as Scuba Club Cozumel?

 

[Jcp2]

Somehow I doubt that somebody with a tag of machineguntours.com is going to change how he dives based on our “feelings” on fish interaction.

 

[Mike Walker]

I believe this is "Horse Coral".

Nahh, that's baby dinosaur coral....

(I'll stop derailing this now...)

I'm spending a couple days at SCC in December... the urge to ask questions may be overpowering....

 

[ChuckP]

Did they ID the diver/DM as Scuba Club Cozumel?

Only in that Facebook post, the boat is obvious and easy to id, I’m too busy to wander over there. How many DMs you think carry an aluminum colored poker?

It’s been reported to the park without 100% proof, hopefully they’ll talk better DMing procedures with whoever it is, that kind of stuff shouldn’t even have to be talked about.