Article: The Number One Rule In Scuba Diving: No Touching!

[doctormike]

How can we make sure that the harvest is sustainable? If I'm spearing the occasional fish, or picking some mussles or scallops, just the probability of me being able to take home more than the population can sustain is pretty slim. A commercial fisherman with their tools has a much larger probability of harvesting in a non-sustainable manner.

In the UK, commercial scallop harvesting is by dredging. In Norway, commercial scallop harvesting is done by divers. Now, what has the biggest effect on the environment? That I occasionally buy diver-harvested scallops and sometimes take home a catch bag full of scallops (and I admit, during picking I do touch the bottom occasionally), or that I support commercial dredging for scallops by buying them from a UK scallop fisherman who's been dredging large areas of the bottom to get those scallops?

Yes, that last question was rhetorical. Why do you ask?

I don't understand what you are saying here. My point was that often people make a huge deal about something while ignoring the fact that they support much worse offenses without realizing it. Sort of like people who post righteous outrage and death threats about the Taiji dolphin hunt or the Faroe islands whale harvest, while happily eating the products of factory farms that condemn hundreds of millions of social, sentient, intelligent mammals to lives of abject torture and miserable deaths.

I wasn't trying to convince people to never eat commercially harvested seafood. Sure, it would be better from the isolated viewpoint of ocean conservation only if we were all subsistence hunters, but that's not going to happen. And I'm not adopting the opposition of factory farms as my passionate cause either - just want people to have some perspective. Which gets back to my feedback to the OP.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

You of all people should recognize attack mode.

I've nearly 4,000 dives worldwide and can honestly say I have never been attacked by a marine creature ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

How can we make sure that the harvest is sustainable?

Eat lionfish ... no amount of human intervention (in the form of fishing) could possibly keep up with their fecundity ... something on the order of 2 million eggs per year per female ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[EastEndDiver]

I always thought the number one rule of Scuba Diving was Be Safe and Have fun........how things have changed.

 

[Akimbo]

Be Safe and Have fun

(background, not a classic reply to a quote)
That is redundant. Unsafe diving causes injuries and death, which is definitely NOT not fun. Someone in my class at US Navy First Class Diving School asked a salty old Master Diver "What makes a good diver?". He replied "Not killing your dumb a$$ or any of your shipmates is a good start". That statement is more profound than I appreciated at the time.

 

[DanTay]

I've nearly 4,000 dives worldwide and can honestly say I have never been attacked by a marine creature ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Not even a trigger fish?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Not even a trigger fish?

He's not attacking ... he's guarding his territory (usually because of eggs). I've been charged at by a trigger fish ... never bitten by one. I'm aware enough to have avoided it.

But that does remind me ... I was once bitten by a clownfish ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[BoltSnap]

He's not attacking ... he's guarding his territory (usually because of eggs). I've been charged at by a trigger fish ... never bitten by one. I'm aware enough to have avoided it.

But that does remind me ... I was once bitten by a clownfish ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I was nibbled on by some type of "cleaning" fish. It felt "tickly" but borderline "nibbly."

 

[Steve_C]

Don't know about attacked but I was molested by a remora while on the hang bar.

 

[Saniflush]

My ears have been attacked by a swarm sergeant majors...My own fault though for opening up a bag of rice crispies.