feeding fish and marine life

[TyGuy]

this past weekend me and my club went for a dive in a lake in upstate CT. while there we all sat down at a submerged picnic table, broke open the freshwater mussels and fed some fish. this gave me a flash back to a cage dive in the bahamas and the operators using a bait box to attract the sharks.

alot of people and articles talk about the dangers of feeding fish and marine life to attract them (throwing off the eco system, changing natural habits etc). i didnt see anything wrong with our harmless fish feeding or the bait box on the cage dive.

where's the 'line' when feeding marine life?

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree with you. Any bad effects resulting from divers feeding fish must be negligable compared to everything else we've done to the oceans & lakes. Maybe in a tiny pond with divers feeding them daily wouldn't be so good. Even the somewhat taboo act of splitting urchins open to feed fish can't be of any consequence to population of a gazillion urchins.

 

[vladimir]

I suppose there is a cost/benefit analysis to be done regarding shark feeds. Off the top of my head, the costs: teaching predators to associate food with divers; putting divers into close proximity to feeding, perhaps frenzied, predators; strengthening the mythology of sharks being demonic predators in the event of a shark bite incident. Benefits: inspiring an increased environmental awareness or appreciation in the divers who participate; generating tourism revenue that creates incentives to preserve underwater resources.

Personally, I don't really enjoy zoo-like staged interactions like a shark feed, or cheez-whiz for reef fish. I'd prefer to see these animals under normal conditions or not at all. Take the Stuart Cove shark feed, I'll take Cocos, Galapagos, Sardine Run, etc.

 

[Garrobo]

I suspect that the small amount of fish feeding going on around the world doesn't have any impact on the fish populations or their normal activity. Those who are simple-minded enough to purposely put themselves in the immediate area of a bunch of sharks during a feeding frenzy deserve whatever consequenses which may arise. On the other hand, I feed my bluegills, bass and catfish in the small lake which is on my property so as to fatten them up for the skillet. No harm done and yum-yum.

 

[drbill]

Even the somewhat taboo act of splitting urchins open to feed fish can't be of any consequence to population of a gazillion urchins.

In some areas such as Catalina where their lobster and sheephead predators still have reasonably sized populations to control them, I discourage the killing of sea urchins to feed fish. Here the urchins are not a problem ecologically because they are relatively well controlled by their natural predators. In areas where urchin barrens exist (often because the sheephead and lobster predators have been over-fished) it may be a different story.

I think it is best to know not only the local "ecology," but also the specifics of the organisms killed for food and the species that you feed them to before deciding whether it is a good or bad thing. To do it strictly for human interest seems awfully self centered IMHO. I don't see a lot of difference in killing a native species such as a sea urchin for our pleasure and finning a shark.

 

[H2O 70]

If you think about it, we, as fishermen, have been feeding fish for a long, long time. The only problem that fishing are causing may be overfishing.

Now feeding apex predators for sake of tourism, is another story. They will associate the area and divers as an easy source of food and a negative encounter with a human could easily do more harm than good.

A couple of years ago, there was an Austrian lawyer who was on a supervised shark feed off of Bimini or Grand Bahama who was accidentally bitten in the leg by a bull or tiger and ultimately he died. Head lines reflect SCUBA diver dies after being bit by bull shark. The general public reads this and it paints a very negative stereotype of bull sharks and sharks in general.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm not generally in favor of feeding wild animals ... below or above the water. Sure, it's entertaining ... but what price is the animal paying for your entertainment?

If you feel the need to feed fish, I'd recommend an aquarium. Modifying the behavior of wild animals by feeding them defeats the whole reason for going down to look at them. They're not pets ... go watch, and let them find their food in the way that Nature intended.

Frankly, humans have no way of knowing what the side-effects of our interaction with animals will be ... but if there are any side-effects, you can bet it will ultimately be to the detriment of the animal.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[orm]

I'm not a scientist in any way, but I would have thought that one of the other issues with feeding fish is that they become reliant on it. Similar to birds being fed. They will forsake their normal eating habit/migratory instinct to stick around as the food is plentiful and easy.

This could have consequences on a greater scale.

You see it in areas where fish are regularly fed, there's dozens of them, lurking around.

What happens when the tourist season is over/the weather gets bad/storms come and people don't turn up to feed them.

I dunno... all of this to me sounds valid. The reason TO feed fish? Just so you can see them up close? Doesn't seem too ethical.


Then of course there's the diet issue, feeding fish food that they wouldn't normally eat could harm them long term.

 

[vladimir]

Then of course there's the diet issue, feeding fish food that they wouldn't normally eat could harm them long term.

Are you suggesting that reef fish aren't optimally adapted to a diet containing cheez-whiz and bread crumbs?

 

[Guba]

I've never witnessed or participated in any shark feeds or any other type of feeding in a marine environment (I must lead a very sheltered life), but I have seen the effect on the wildlife in freshwater scenarios. What I've witnessed is that the baited fish tend to become extremely aggressive and abandon their "normal" behavior when divers are around. In fact, at one site I frequent, the fish are so lured by the mere presence of a diver that they "swarm" us, making it nearly impossible to see out of the cloud of fish. Hardly "normal". In several others, divers are pestered by normally docile fish that are so accustomed to being fed that they bite at our ears if we turn our backs. Thank heavens, they're not big!

Scientifically, I'm not sure these experiences translate to the situations in the OP, but they are reflected in the effects we see in a variety of natural settings on land (such as feeding bears and raccoons in National Forests, etc...), so I have to believe that they could become issues in the oceans as well.