To touch or not to touch?

[highdesert]

I should correct one of my earlier posts, the search grid was no on staghorn coral. It was over a grassy sand area they were using a vacuum system on.

My knowledege of marine biology is nowhere what I wish it was ... but what I believe is the case is that seagrass beds are rich nursery areas for marine life. So while it was good of you to correct your observation about staghorn coral vs. seagrass, we should not assume that no harm is being done ... possibly only harm of a different sort.

 

[mjh]

Ms. Church I think I speak for many to say I am so happy to see luminaries like you partake in threads like this. As a business owner I understand the trepidation some feel to weigh in on a subject in case ill feelings might reflect on their business.

Perspective and experience like yours is invaluable. I am also am hopeful since we are seeing more and more threads dealing with this subject surface. It is so easy to go off on tangents but my simple goal is to try to stay focused, excuse the pun, on what our community is doing.

I agree whole heartedly that involvement and volunteering is crucial. As a volunteer diver at the local aquarium I have learned so much more about our ocean environments and have met some great people along the way. We were even able to combine a vacation with conservation by visiting Malpelo and Cocos with the Imagining Foundation Welcome to Imaging Foundation, who we helped document with video and stills the long line fishing for sharks that is still occurring there regardless of the 24mile no fish zone.

Threads like this hopefully get people thinking and better yet taking that first step to doing something.

 

[searider]

Hi Magged!
Regarding your question about touching, its sound so interesting!
Any way in the rule of scuba diving we are not allowed to touch even moved anything under the water. Like the Nudis,(meaning “The Naked Gills”)when you touched them you are taking off the protection of the animals. As we know, all of them have a thin layer of protection on their skin against the bacteria (as well as corals and fishes) .if you touching them your exposing them to the bacteria and prey.

Always remember, under water creatures don’t have a doctor to do the vaccination even though they produced in their own process..

 

[Trimix2dive]

Don't lick fire coral !

 

[Cathy Church]

On a trip to PNG last year I ended up on a sandy flat with sparse grass. Usually kneeling here would be harmless, but as I looked at the sand it appeared to be moving around and fuzzy. I took an extreme close-up and found it covered with tiny caprellids, or skeleton shrimp about an eighth of an inch tall. I realized that I could not even settle here at all without crushing hundreds of them. Fortunately, such things are not common, so I swam off to find a true sand area where I could explore without hearing tiny screams.

My point being, that even swimming through the water disrupts tiny planktonic creatures, and our bubbles break up fragile threads and colonies of all sorts of things--some days more than others. At what point must we quit diving?? Never--we must continue to explore, document, enjoy and bring to the world our experiences and love of the sea. All of that with minimal impact when it is avoidable. Divers have been a key force in producing environmental awareness of our oceans.

 

[pir8]

This is always a dilema on just how much interaction we should have in the underH2O world. I mus tadmit to likeing Shark Dives as they are just cool to be on, but is it right to do. It does tend to promote understanding of a great creature and hopefully bring more people to the cause of protecting our creatures undersea.