Abuse of marine life by Scuba Schools of America.

[Padipro]

Don't allow yourselves to get pulled into the pointless and unanswerable arguments about whether you're hurting the angel shark or comparing scales of damage to sea urchins (rec feeding vs. commercial).

To be blunt: who cares whether you're hurting the critters? It's not about whether you've killed an urchin or stressed an angel shark. It's about respect. It's about whether diving for you involves being as natural a part as you can be of an amazing other environment and respecting it... or whether you're just there to crap on things.

I don't care whether Rusty stressed the angel sharks, I care that he's teaching disrespect.

Very well said, and I agree 100%.

 

[CA Diver]

Dr. Bill:

I have seen the Blue / Light purple urchins swarmint the hold fast of kelp but never the red urchins shown in these videos. Do the red Urchins have a different diet?

 

[LioKai]

Gj62,
I realize that what you are doing with urchins is by no means as harmful as the original video that created this thread
/QUOTE]

Well Gj62, I stand corrected. I will agree to disagree with you on this one.



I think John H Moore has said it the best when he said: "It is about respect." That is not to say that you do not respect nature, it is just that your views of respect are a little different from mine.

From the stand point of shooting video - A question for the masses;
I shoot behaviors, mating and spawning specificly. Will someone please tell me how to nudge an octopus just the right way to get it to mate? It would be most helpful if I knew a way to grab a finescale triggerfish by the tail to get it to mate. I'm getting tired of sitting on the ocean floor for hours, waiting to get the two minutes of video that I want. :handball: (Laughing Out Loud)

Matthew

 

[gj62]

It's meaningless sophistry and not worth the time.

But I'll give you a challenge, based upon the video. Go to a public park, with the more people the better. Find a squirrel. Grab it. Restrain it by it's forearms. Spend some time posing it for a camera. Then find another squirrel. Repeat. Do this to as many squirrels as you can find. See how the people around you react. See how long it takes for the police to show up.

Hey, around here we prarie dogs - you either gas 'em or love 'em... I see both sides, but I choose healthy livestock over rabid vermin...

 

[drbill]

CA Diver- Yes, urchin barrens do exist in some areas of So Cal. In areas where the increases in urchins are due to anthropogenic causes it might seem to make sense to control them mechanically. However, do we know enough to know whether there are natural cycles of urchin blooms?

My concern in Catalina's dive park and many other areas on Catalina is due to the fact that we rarely experience such urchin barrens. There is no need to control them, and certainly no need to kill them (or anything else) in a reserve.

Of course in the dive park we have a healthy population of sheephead which control the urchins if they get out of hand.

I agree 100% with John on the need to maintain respect (both towards marine life and other people) in the equation. It should be the driving force while we are underwater, or walking on the street. I see no benefit in killing another animal essentially for our own "entertainment" whether it be killing an urchin to feed fish, or killing a marlin.

Dr. Bill

 

[scubacucamonga]

...or killing a marlin.
Dr. Bill

Old thread, I know...but I'm sure glad to hear you say that!

 

[scottfiji]

Old thread, but good topic...a lot of interesting posts...

I'm a little confused... When someone goes to a dive site, and smashes all the Lobsters, cuts out all the scallops, stabs all the octopus, and spears all the sheephead, I don't hear anyone at all complaining. No one.

But when we have a topic about pulling on sharks tails, and feeding garibaldi, everyone jumps in and gives their opinion.

Am I the only one that sees hypocrisy here?

I don't mean any disrespect to my fellow so-cal divers at all. And I'm not trying to defend fish-feeding or shark-tail-pulling.

It just seems like either people are afraid to say anything about someone killing off everything at a dive site, or they really believe it is not as bad as "touching" wildlife.

Maybe if mike had speared the angel-sharks, instead of harrassing them, no one would have complained?

I'm sorry, you folks are probably more eco-friendly than most divers out there. Its just a little frustrating to see so many people speak up about this (which is a noble cause, don't get me wrong), but be silent on what I see as bigger issues, imho...

Then again, at least people are speaking up about some topics, instead of nothing.


Scott

 

[H2Andy]

I'm a little confused... When someone goes to a dive site, and smashes all the Lobsters, cuts out all the scallops, stabs all the octopus, and spears all the sheephead, I don't hear anyone at all complaining. No one.

But when we have a topic about pulling on sharks tails, and feeding garibaldi, everyone jumps in and gives their opinion.

Am I the only one that sees hypocrisy here?

i don't think it's hypocresy at all (old thread indeed).

while i do not necessarily share it, i belive the reasoning
goes something like this:

"pulling on a shark's tail or feeding garibaldi are things
done while diving BY DIVERS, and as fellow divers, we want divers to be
conservation minded, so we get on them for this.

"hunting and gathering is something them weird spear fishermen
and underwater mollusk hunters do... them's a different tribe,
we can't really get them to stop. they're not real divers
anyway. real divers take nothing but pictures and leave
nothing but bubbles."


or something along those lines.

 

[scottfiji]

i don't think it's hypocresy at all (old thread indeed).

while i do not necessarily share it, i belive the reasoning
goes something like this:

"pulling on a shark's tail or feeding garibaldi are things
done while diving BY DIVERS, and as fellow divers, we want divers to be
conservation minded, so we get on them for this.

"hunting and gathering is something them weird spear fishermen
and underwater mollusk hunters do... them's a different tribe,
we can't really get them to stop. they're not real divers
anyway. real divers take nothing but pictures and leave
nothing but bubbles."

or something along those lines.

I agree with you, I think that's probably the reasoning.

Ever been diving in California?

 

[LeFlaneur]

You likely are doing more harm than good if you consider that any outside interference is harm, and the fact that petrochemicals are likely being consumed to transport you, fill your dive tanks, make your gear, etc. Of course, all of this has much more impact on the environment, flora and fauna of the planet than my 1-on-1 interaction with the occassional eel or garibaldi.

I'm sure you'll hang up your reg now, sit in your house, and never drive a car or boat again, because, after all, what is the help?!?

Since you two revitalized the thread...

gj62 brings up a good point. The argument for respecting the environment invites accusations of hipocrisy, because those arguing it invariably in the course of their lives do something that is not "good for the environment." They eat meat, drive cars, wear leather, use air conditioning, etc. Thus they can be branded hipocrites and their points ignored.

Hypocrisy occurs when your actions don't match your values. There are three ways to avoid this condition:

1. Adjust your actions to match your values (impossible to do completely)
2. Adjust your your values to match your actions. (very easy)
3. Have no values at all. (very very easy for some)

I choose method number one even though I know I'll never fully achieve it. I'm not going to live in a mud hut subsisting on water and fruit, but I will do the best I can. For me that means creating as little trash as possible, burning as little fuel as possible, not killing anything that I'm not going to eat, not frivolously entertaining myself with actions that do direct damage. It means having a basic respect for life, for other people and for the planet.

Chopping up creatures to feed to other creatures for your simple amusement shows a basic disrespect for both creatures. If you would feed an urchin to a fish, would you feed the fish to a dolphin? Would you feed that dolphin to an orca? Why not? What's the difference?

Also... using the term "rabid vermin" to describe prairie dogs pretty much shows you don't "see both sides" doesn't it?