Hassling the Fish

[drbill]

I don't think that divers depopulate the reef - unfortunately chaging climate and polution do this for us.

I can say with some certainty as a marine biologist of 40+ years that as divers we indeed can "depopulate" a reef, at least of certain species (and I'm not referring to spear fishing). We have seen examples of species here in Catalina (soCal) waters which avoid areas where divers and snorkelers are present in large numbers, yet are found in areas immediately adjacent to the areas where humans are.

 

[Tigerman]

The Pub is three doors down on the right ... stop on by, that's where we talk about Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Pizzatarians ... personally I find most divers are pretty apolitical once the fins go on ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Not to mention bacontarians... mmmmmm, bacon!

You can get quite close to many critters if you approach them properly. In some cases, they don't even mind some handling ... wolfies for example can be very curious. The thing is don't make them feel threatened, always leave them an escape path, and don't impede them if they try to leave. Lots of photographers manage to get amazing pictures without stressing an animal out in the process. This turtle, for example, didn't change its behavior in the least due to our presence. We never got in its way. At one point, it settled down on the reef, completely ignoring our presence.
...

I find that turtles quite often do ignore you as long as you dont corner it or actually touch it.
This little bugger pretty much came swimming up to us, a group of 6-8 divers, and swam right between us in no hurry.


And this one just swam up next to us and dived down to the firecoral..
People knowing what that goop hes drooling is would get a pretty good idea of how much he cared about us being less than 3 feet away..