sorry if this debate is already over but I only just got here.... back to the to touch or not to touch... now I am one of the most anal "the environment is not there for us to poke and prod" kind of people I know but just to add another view on this issue I shall add my two bubbles...
It is a good idea to make the blanket rule to a boat of divers. You have no idea what their level of understanding is of the marine environment and saying you can touch this but not that, is a little hard for many people to handle. However, there really are some things you CAN touch. Parts of the Great Barrier Reef for instance, are perfectly touchable, a bit of blatantly dead coral for instance or rock, making up part of the reef. I'd stay away from touching any kind of hard coral as the thought of crushing such an intricately fragile little animal against its own skeleton sends a shiver down my spine even though most hard corals have their fleshy polyps neatly tucked away during the day and out of harms way. But yelling at someone for touching a bit of hard coral, is like hollering at someone for treading on a colony of ants. If you are prepared to do that, fine. It's the damage to the coral structure that is actually detrimental as once you take off the outer skeleton of the coral, it will take years to grow back but I am pretty sure that squishing a few polyps is no big deal. Not that I would do this intentionally, but I just wanted to point out what is serious damage and what is not. Making sure your boat anchor is safely fixed in the sand and not yanking away at a garden of staghorn coral is much more important than telling divers they should not try to touch a thing (expect from the fact that they could get hurt from touching something of course). If you are a relatively experienced diver and have a clue about marine like, I think it is safe to say that you and your buddy wont be doing anything any real harm by picking up a few shells and looking inside, holding a hermit crab in your hand or lifting up sand to attract some onlooking fish etc.
Smacking into the reef because you have terrible bouyancy control is unacceptable, and such divers should not be allowed on reefs!! I have seen DM and Instructors embrace coral heads to anchor themselves in a current. I have seen "experienced" photographers land on coral while taking photos and breaking coral with their fins or stirring the bottom up so much they smother corals in sediment.
Mastering your skills and becoming aware of your impacts on the environment when you dive is much more important that wanting to reach out and touch a few things here and there in my opinion. Learning about the environment through touch is also important for some people, especially children. A responsible instructor can say in the briefing "you can touch rocks and sand and anything I hand to you (a starfish or sea cucumber for example) but please avoid touching anything else and this is why... is a good way to approach the "can touch some things but not others " issue on a dive boat.
I collected an empty abalone shell while I was diving in South Africa. These shells, are not used by any other animal to my knowledge, and are used as ashtrays in many places in South Africa. I don't see what is wrong with bringing back a shell or two if you know that you have not taken away a potential home for an animals. But again, this is a bad thing to tell novice divers, or divers who don't know much about the local environment. I am talking mainly from the viewpoint of someone like myself and saying that I think is a little over reactive to say absolutely no touching and no taking for all divers.
Sorry to go on.....
Also.... what did you mean scubasean when you LOL'd at the statement about spearfishing. Globally, spearfishing makes an insignificant impact on our oceans comparred to comercial fishing boats, however, on a local scale, spear fishing can threaten some endemic fish. There are strict restriction here in Bermuda, on spearfishing resulting from the previous impacts that came out of the sport. You are not allowed to have diving equipment on the same boat as a spear and you are not allowed any kind of automatic spear gun... everyone must use just a plain old spear.... as scuba diving and guns had a really bad impact on out local fish species!
This brings me back to the original debate. Most overfishing affects pelagic fishies (deep ocean fish) while the dive industry affects reefs, and comparing the two is therefore pretty difficult. A heavily dived site, could be a breeding ground for a rare endemic fish species which eventually becomes extinct and send a chain reaction within the local area, resulting in several other species becoming extinct, wheras, overfishing for example may cause the exctinction of several species of pelagic fish. What is worse, loosing 7 species of endemic marine organisms in Gand Cayman, or loosing Cod, haddock, and hake on a global scale?? Economically it is worse to have those fisheries collapse, but in the longterm, the collapse of local environments and the loss of endemic species could be considered just as bad, especially when a rare species of sponge carrying the cure for cancer goes extinct after divers destroy the last site it inhabits..... what's worse??
Just thought I'd try and look at it from different perspecitves, but appreciatte everyone else's points on this issue....
It is a good idea to make the blanket rule to a boat of divers. You have no idea what their level of understanding is of the marine environment and saying you can touch this but not that, is a little hard for many people to handle. However, there really are some things you CAN touch. Parts of the Great Barrier Reef for instance, are perfectly touchable, a bit of blatantly dead coral for instance or rock, making up part of the reef. I'd stay away from touching any kind of hard coral as the thought of crushing such an intricately fragile little animal against its own skeleton sends a shiver down my spine even though most hard corals have their fleshy polyps neatly tucked away during the day and out of harms way. But yelling at someone for touching a bit of hard coral, is like hollering at someone for treading on a colony of ants. If you are prepared to do that, fine. It's the damage to the coral structure that is actually detrimental as once you take off the outer skeleton of the coral, it will take years to grow back but I am pretty sure that squishing a few polyps is no big deal. Not that I would do this intentionally, but I just wanted to point out what is serious damage and what is not. Making sure your boat anchor is safely fixed in the sand and not yanking away at a garden of staghorn coral is much more important than telling divers they should not try to touch a thing (expect from the fact that they could get hurt from touching something of course). If you are a relatively experienced diver and have a clue about marine like, I think it is safe to say that you and your buddy wont be doing anything any real harm by picking up a few shells and looking inside, holding a hermit crab in your hand or lifting up sand to attract some onlooking fish etc.
Smacking into the reef because you have terrible bouyancy control is unacceptable, and such divers should not be allowed on reefs!! I have seen DM and Instructors embrace coral heads to anchor themselves in a current. I have seen "experienced" photographers land on coral while taking photos and breaking coral with their fins or stirring the bottom up so much they smother corals in sediment.
Mastering your skills and becoming aware of your impacts on the environment when you dive is much more important that wanting to reach out and touch a few things here and there in my opinion. Learning about the environment through touch is also important for some people, especially children. A responsible instructor can say in the briefing "you can touch rocks and sand and anything I hand to you (a starfish or sea cucumber for example) but please avoid touching anything else and this is why... is a good way to approach the "can touch some things but not others " issue on a dive boat.
I collected an empty abalone shell while I was diving in South Africa. These shells, are not used by any other animal to my knowledge, and are used as ashtrays in many places in South Africa. I don't see what is wrong with bringing back a shell or two if you know that you have not taken away a potential home for an animals. But again, this is a bad thing to tell novice divers, or divers who don't know much about the local environment. I am talking mainly from the viewpoint of someone like myself and saying that I think is a little over reactive to say absolutely no touching and no taking for all divers.
Sorry to go on.....
Also.... what did you mean scubasean when you LOL'd at the statement about spearfishing. Globally, spearfishing makes an insignificant impact on our oceans comparred to comercial fishing boats, however, on a local scale, spear fishing can threaten some endemic fish. There are strict restriction here in Bermuda, on spearfishing resulting from the previous impacts that came out of the sport. You are not allowed to have diving equipment on the same boat as a spear and you are not allowed any kind of automatic spear gun... everyone must use just a plain old spear.... as scuba diving and guns had a really bad impact on out local fish species!
This brings me back to the original debate. Most overfishing affects pelagic fishies (deep ocean fish) while the dive industry affects reefs, and comparing the two is therefore pretty difficult. A heavily dived site, could be a breeding ground for a rare endemic fish species which eventually becomes extinct and send a chain reaction within the local area, resulting in several other species becoming extinct, wheras, overfishing for example may cause the exctinction of several species of pelagic fish. What is worse, loosing 7 species of endemic marine organisms in Gand Cayman, or loosing Cod, haddock, and hake on a global scale?? Economically it is worse to have those fisheries collapse, but in the longterm, the collapse of local environments and the loss of endemic species could be considered just as bad, especially when a rare species of sponge carrying the cure for cancer goes extinct after divers destroy the last site it inhabits..... what's worse??
Just thought I'd try and look at it from different perspecitves, but appreciatte everyone else's points on this issue....
