OP
ask about encouraging guests to "stroke" whale sharks as well
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
smartecosse:ask about encouraging guests to "stroke" whale sharks as well
What about cleaner wrasses?Bowmouth:Often divers seem to think that marine animals that are looking cute and harmless or animals that allow divers to come close to them are inviting them to touch,stroke and poke them. This is ridiculous and will often disturb and scare the animal away or may even hurt the animal.
Cuttle fish don't like to be cuddled, octopi don't want to be poked, zebra sharks don't enjoy it when divers disturb them during their nappy, manta's are not commercial airliners and give away free flights, whalesharks do not need diver-remoras (but in rare cases young animals may actually "bump" divers).
Divers that really believe they MUST touch something to have a memorable dive should start with touching hydroids and after that continue with fire-urchins and jelly fish. Or maybe they should touch their buddies a bit more and make make this world a better and friendlier place...
Batfish:Nice one, H.
A touchy feely diver should be encouraged to touch scorpion fish, lion fish, stingrays, blue ring octopus and so on.