To touch or not to touch?

[ZenDiver.3D]

Okay, 2 cents coming..
1. If you are a new diver, I tell you Do Not Touch. Inexperience and carelessness cause damage to the sea life and/or to you. Usually both.

2. Many of us at this forum did not fall off the truck yesterday. Many are extremely experienced divers and conservationists. These same people, however, do get offended when lumped into groups or told what to do. I agree to a great extent with them. (I may have issues with authority...)

3. Most damage is caused by boaters, fishtraps, pollution, and intended harm from other people- not us. Having said that, there is also a big reason why it is illegal to touch or pick at anything underwater in places like the Red Sea or to bring it up. They have massive numbers of once a year recreational tourists who absolutely plough the reefs and life on it. Back to ignorance.... I have smacked more than one Russian dude on the back of the head for things - like trying to yank apart a giant clam, trying to break of a huge hunk of table coral, poking at the fish he had managed to corner against a coral gap..... It's illegal to have a dive knife on dives...

4. You name it, we as a species, can be incredibly stupid. We must police oursleves. I do touch. Of course, I am a biologist, and should know what I should and should not touch. I free crabs stuck in fishing line, we just pulled a fishing net off one of our reefs yesterday- but were too late to save the juvenile green turtle caught up in it.

5. That whole part of AWARENESS is a very important part of basic scuba knowledge. If you go doen there, be aware of teh things around you, and how you and they affect the other. Be very careful to be the good guy.

 

[Sas]

Okay, 2 cents coming..
1. If you are a new diver, I tell you Do Not Touch. Inexperience and carelessness cause damage to the sea life and/or to you. Usually both.

2. Many of us at this forum did not fall off the truck yesterday. Many are extremely experienced divers and conservationists. These same people, however, do get offended when lumped into groups or told what to do. I agree to a great extent with them. (I may have issues with authority...)

3. Most damage is caused by boaters, fishtraps, pollution, and intended harm from other people- not us. Having said that, there is also a big reason why it is illegal to touch or pick at anything underwater in places like the Red Sea or to bring it up. They have massive numbers of once a year recreational tourists who absolutely plough the reefs and life on it. Back to ignorance.... I have smacked more than one Russian dude on the back of the head for things - like trying to yank apart a giant clam, trying to break of a huge hunk of table coral, poking at the fish he had managed to corner against a coral gap..... It's illegal to have a dive knife on dives...

4. You name it, we as a species, can be incredibly stupid. We must police oursleves. I do touch. Of course, I am a biologist, and should know what I should and should not touch. I free crabs stuck in fishing line, we just pulled a fishing net off one of our reefs yesterday- but were too late to save the juvenile green turtle caught up in it.

5. That whole part of AWARENESS is a very important part of basic scuba knowledge. If you go doen there, be aware of teh things around you, and how you and they affect the other. Be very careful to be the good guy.

Yea well said. I dislike that some people here think that it is ok to insist on a no-touch rule on all other divers for all creatures found in the ocean. So I definitely see Zen.Diver's point about how it is really just in place to stop ignorant people doing damage. I am sure many experienced divers with good intentions can handle marine life with no adverse affects. I have lightly handled a nudibranch that was floating through the ocean, (I had gloves on) and would do it again! Anything I wasn't sure about, I would leave alone.

]Slightly off topic but I just get very upset when I see pictures of divers touching anything. Maybe I'm a little bit too purist about it but I just don't see why it is EVER neccessary to touch ANYTHING.

Deefstes, if you have never found the need to touch anything under the sea, then you will in time with more diving. So yea, I think you are being too purist personally I've squished a sponge here and there when I have been knocked into a ledge, pylon etc by other divers. Unfortunate but sometimes you have to grab onto something to minimise damage and so on. So saying you should never touch anything, is unrealistic. At least for some of the places I dive.

Anyway, I have just got my fishing license and plan to start looking for crays and abalone (season permitting). So yea, I'm down with the whole touching of sea life in certain circumstances such as fishing and for science. But of course, it needs to be done in a way that will be as harmless as possible and will not affect the sustainability of marine life.

 

[Deefstes]

OH MY WORD! My not realising what a huge argument this would turn into is probably another tell tale of my SCUBA inexperience. I made a comment about touching sea creatures and got blasted for trying to "control" others. I responded to that and came back the following morning to be greeted by 8 pages of replies!

Either way, I will be honest that I've read some good arguments for touching in these 8 pages but I'm not convinced yet. I suppose I don't have to be convinced either as I will not do any damage by refraining from touching.

I would like to comment on a posting from Walter on page 4 though.

Touching and feeding are two very separate issues. I do not feed, but I do touch and it is absolutely none of your business if I touch or what I touch.

I'm not sure what makes the two so different. I never accused you of feeding anything but to me the principle is the same. I just feel that, as guests in their domain, we should try to limit our intrusion as much as we can whether it be touching them, feeding them, breaking off pieces of their habitat or whatever else. Of course there are no absolutes and in some cases it is neccessary to touch. To me it's just about a responsible mind-set and "what I do is none of your business" doesn't instill that confidence in me.

If you don't want to touch, don't. It's your choice.

Thanks, I won't. But I'm really sorry to say that I can not stop being irked when I see video clips of other people picking up rays out of the water or riding turtles and mantas and if you consider that to be someone trying to control you then I'm afraid but I'm not the one with a problem, you are.

Thanks for all the other, more reasoned responses. I think it actually did open my eyes to the fact that some very experienced divers actually do know and understand the risks and implications of touching creatures and that they can do so responsibly.

 

[Walter]

I simply advocate awareness, know what you are doing, how it impacts, and try to reduce it.

No arguments there, although I would have phrased the last part to read, "try to reduce negative impacts."

 

[ZenDiver.3D]

No arguments there, although I would have phrased the last part to read, "try to reduce negative impacts."

Yep, I agree honey, the two statments are very different. It's a difference of forethought vs. reflection..... We're back to awareness.

I just confiscated a fellow DM's knife on a dive I was on, because I caught him trying to pry pieces of coral and such off a shallow wreck we have... Really good modelling behavior there huh? He was also leading two newly certified divers at the time. And No, he will not get the knife bcak- this is not elementary school. I just took it and swam on. We talked privately about it later.

Allright, ya'll. Done.

 

[miketsp]

Slightly off topic but I just get very upset when I see pictures of divers touching anything. Maybe I'm a little bit too purist about it but I just don't see why it is EVER neccessary to touch ANYTHING. I remember swimming side by side with huge turtles wanting to touch them so badly but just restrained myself because I figured that it would only serve to gratify me and certainly not the turtle.

So when I see pictures of people touching manatees, dolphins, mantas and turtles I just get majorly irked. I mean, I can contain myself, why can't everybody?

I'm sure there are some creatures that don't mind being touched but why touch them anyway? We're in their domain enjoying them in their natural habitat. Can't we do that without interfering. Leave them alone and let them do what they would have done if we weren't there at all.

[/rant]

Since you raised the question of turtles, I have on a few rare occasions come across large turtles rubbing themselves against wrecks trying to clean the crackers off their shells. One time I was with an experienced DM and he pulled out his knife and started to help to break the crackers off. The turtle settled calmly down on the sand and let him work, obviously understanding what he was doing.
He told me after the dive that the crackers burrow through the shell and irritate the turtle.
I've since repeated this on my own a few times and I believe it's one of the few physical interactions that brings a benefit to the animal as well as gratifying the diver.

 

[GA Under Water]

What the words say ...



What my mind hears ...

"I steer clear of anything that could hurt me, but I don't mind handling things that I might be hurting."

How you think is not my problem, how you comprehend isn't either.

 

[Walter]

I'm not sure what makes the two so different.

It's actually pretty sdimple. When you feed wildlife, you give food to the animals. When touching, you don't. That's not to say it's impossible to do both at the same time.

To me it's just about a responsible mind-set and "what I do is none of your business" doesn't instill that confidence in me.

What possible difference does it make if you have confidence instilled in you or not? You obviously still don't get it. This is not about you, except as to what personal choices you make.

I am curious as to what, in your mind constitutes a "responsible mind set." You seem to be implying I don't have it. I would think, "Some do, some don't. Some are safe to touch, others aren't. If in doubt, it's wise to refrain from touching. If you do your homework, you can know what you can safely touch and thumb your nose at those who use a blanket rule with no thought," might just qualify.

I would like to comment on a posting from Walter on page 4 though.

On a side note, it's rarely helpful to refer to page numbers in threads as each member can set the number of posts per page. Members can choose 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 posts per page. For you that post is on page 4, for me it's on page 1, but it's post #32 for both of us. I'm still on page 2.

 

[perdidochas]

How do you believe it harms them?

Most marine creatures are opportunity feeders. Sharks expecially. They will take a free meal if you give them one. When there's no free meal, they'll fall back to what they were doing for food before. I don't believe it alters their feeding behaviors permanantly.

Getting them used to divers and human contact is another issue. Most sharks I see are naturally wary of us. I'd prefer it to stay that way.

Tom

Feeding animals changes their relationship with humans. This makes them bolder around humans leading to a higher chance of attacks on humans, or makes them more vulnerable to predation by humans.

 

[Boxcar Overkill]

Upon further review, I still think one shouldn't be molesting the wildlife for their own amusement. Not that it's the worst sin in the world, but if you have to come down either for or against the proposition, it's better to be against it.

My internal reaction to it is something similar to the way I feel when I see my kids messing with things that there's no good reason for them to be messing with. Even if I don't know how or why, something inside tells me that they're about to break something that's important to me, and I'm gonna say, "aawww"

I'm not saying that divers who mess with sea life are like children playing with things they shouldn't be playing with. (Well, maybe I'm hinting that direction.) Just that my internal reaction to it is about the same.

Why should you care what I think? You shouldn't.

Why am I telling you this? Because it's an internet discussion board.

So can I get my Project AWARE Underwater Naturalist Specialty cert now?