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I have a wreck preservation question.. How do you prevent people from removing (or moving) artifacts from wrecks??
Charter operators don't tolerate this type of behaviour, but how do you prevent private folks form doing it? Any moron with a boat can pillage to their hearts content.
Its not like you can watch over a wreck every minute of the day...Education doesn't seem to be working.. I hear a recent report that one of my favourite wrecks looks like someone has been digging around it (and in it) and some of the item previously there are gone...
Its sad that this type of thing is still going on
My only solution would be to educate people at local marinas and boat ramps.. There are more of them, then there are divers.. sort of like a community watch... except for artifacts... What have other people tried?
Lets hope people have at least a bit of common sense and decency.
If people are diving on wrecks in the St Lawrence and Lake oNtario there are plaques put on the wrecks by SOS and POW that say "take only pictures, leave only bubbles" or something to that effect. some even have a notice saying "this wreck is property of Ontario, removing artifacts is prohibited"
I still remember last year seeing a portion of the Rothesay that was freshly cut off with a hacksaw..... come on people.... is a little piece of metal really worth wrecking it for everyone else?
Sparks old buddy, It seems to me there is no answer to this question.People tend to preach the preservation of wrecks, then grab the first thing they can find. I think that if you feel the wrecks should be left as they were found , that you won't touch things.If you don't, and you are only spouting to tow the line, then the piliging will continue.I know a few people who have done the latter and show their plunder to only a select few.I,can't, however see myself turning these people in to the governing bodies. Probably for fear of reprisals.This shouldn't be the case.I don't have an answer to this problem, I just know I can sleep at night, and so can you.
One of the main reason I won't dive the Tiller again, I read the report on the wreck and we couldn't wait to do the dive, when we did the dive all the stuff was missing not worth coming back to. It's everywhere there are a lot of wrecks that the finders will not even tell anyone about, even show pics of them due to the pillaging that follows. Take the Brockville for example they didn't even have a good mooring system happening till a few years ago and still with it some charter operators feel that they don't have to wait and will throw anchors into the wreck. I remember the Kinghorn being intact a couple of years ago you should see it now.
Funny thing is that lots of people make livings of these wrecks and still feel the need to drop anchors and pilfer them.
Funny thing is that lots of people make livings of these wrecks and still feel the need to drop anchors and pilfer them.
That's the part that amazes me.... The same people that depend on the industry seem to do little to stop the problem..
Its funny that you should mention the Tiller... That's the wreck I was thinking about when I wrote the original post. I know local charter operators would not tolerate pillaging.. So it must be some other individual.. I don't even know who you would call if you caught someone red handed.. I'd be surprised if the local constabulary would even come out if you called in a violation of the Heritage Act.. Where does one report violations?
I had not even considered anchor damage... The Tiller is pretty deep.. and there is a mooring on it.. that helps a lot.. unfortunatly it also makes the wreck easier to find for thos ewho want to remove artifacts.
Some of the charter operators are the best known pillagers. It is illegal under the federal marine heratage act to remove any item from a shipwreck site. However, due to an inability to monitor the sites and the difficulity in building a legal case against the offenders, 99.9% of the acts go unpunished. Many of the pillaged items also end up south of the 49th so now it's a case of getting the assistance of the American authorities. Some SOS membersd are quite active in hunting down and returning artifacts, but it's arduous work with little to show for it.
I still don't get why people would take artifacts.. why would someone want a cabinet wull of cracked and dented plates and cuttlery.. Each item is out of context, and neither informative nor practical or attractive..
I never understood why people put anchors in front of sea food restaurants.. its just tacky...We don't put cows in front of steakhouses either.. LOL
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Originally Posted by Tom R
