do you intervene with cruel nature?

[fishb0y]

To fishb0y -> You're really into that slow speed action, aren't you? Bad karma, man! LOL!

The worst part is that I always find the trumpet towards the end of the dive, so I miss most of the action.

 

[drbill]

Ok let me help get this thread back on track.

What about crown of thorns? Here in the Philippines during the international cleanup day in September we harvest COT's also. I am sure they do this around the world. Otherwise, we would have heard of it by now. I mean we heard about the great barrier reef.

Isn't this interfering also? I mean the COT is eating the coral. How do we know that the coral reefs do not need a COT epidemic to "purge" itself every couple decades?

I harvest the COT's also. Do not know the answer so if this makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. Im just into thinking really deep right now and want your comments on this.

I'm not current on the COT situation although I've observed them in many areas of the world, including places where they seem to be in balance wit the coral and not a problem. My understanding is that the COT blooms may be due to anthropogenic inputs into the system. If so, it may be appropriate to manually control them until the inputs are eliminated.

I know in the 60's and 70's many southern California divers crushed or otherwise killed sea urchins which were devastating our kelp forests. The reason? Human sewage inputs that gave the urchins a secondary food source after they devastated the kelp, thus allowing them to persist and prevent the young stages from settling.

Some SoCal divers still carry out this tradition in a well-meaning but ill-informed way. For example, they kill urchins in our waters where such outbreaks do not generally occur due to sheephead predation. Our kelp forests are not so threatened yet people think they need to kill urchins.

I do know areas where the COT is native and appears to be in balance with the coral reefs and therefore shouldn't be killed.

 

[Mr.X]

Is there any market for COT? I am thinking with urchins the Japanese are more than happy to eat them. They are yummy (not S. purpuratus though). If one were to dry COT could they be sold as curios in those seashell baskets?

 

[Hank49]

Ok let me help get this thread back on track.

What about crown of thorns? Here in the Philippines during the international cleanup day in September we harvest COT's also. I am sure they do this around the world. Otherwise, we would have heard of it by now. I mean we heard about the great barrier reef.

Isn't this interfering also? I mean the COT is eating the coral. How do we know that the coral reefs do not need a COT epidemic to "purge" itself every couple decades?

I harvest the COT's also. Do not know the answer so if this makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. Im just into thinking really deep right now and want your comments on this.

I think the continued harvest or COTs there may be a hangover from the horrible infestation that followed the massive coral bleaching in 1998-99. They covered the reef on the SW side of Boracay for about 4 months and ate everything left that wasn't dead from bleaching. Tourists were stepping on them right off the beach. What a mess. We gathered them every Monday for a while but it didn't do much. They got all the way to Yapak and seemed to stop and disappear. The reefs there and on the backside didn't bleach and had natural defenses (at least that was the theory) But as Drbill says, they are part of a healthy reef. I wouldn't try to remove them from an otherwise healthy looking reef. You probably have to look pretty hard to find them.

 

[EMTGeoffrey]

Intervention is not really a black and white issue in my opinion. In cases where an animal is simply trying to do what is necessary for them to survive (i.e. EATING), it is entirely innapropriate to intervene. Who are we to decide if and when it is acceptable for a natural process to take place?

In cases where there is a problem that is directly/indirectly caused by human contact (as in the case of some of pollution or even the really severe COT infestations that have been reported), intervention is , in my humble opinion, not only appropriate, but absolutely necessary.

Just my two cents

 

[Santa]

Last week when I had a sore throat the bacteria didn't extend me the courtesy of drawing the line between man and nature. No "Whoops-my-bad-mistook-you-for-a-lower-primate-sorry-I-intervened" from that quarter. No respect for the sins and virtues that set man apart.

So i fought back with penicillin. I did it. I intervened with nature. Now I'm waiting for nature to intervene right back. I'm guessing it will at one point or another unless I figure out a way to beat the system.

The horror.

 

[DiverBeth]

You definitely have to let nature take it's course. The only exception I personally can think of is if a shark was eating my ex. I would help the shark anyway I could.

 

[caymaniac]

Let nature take its course.

And if someone wants to pound you with a hammer......should we let nature take it's course ??????

 

[Walter]

Who (other than someone in a corporate office in southern California) would want to do that?

 

[dmdoss]

I'd just hope the shark filled up on the turtle. And not come looking for desert!