Trigger Fish Behaviour

[Fina]

I wonder why Triggers in certain areas are far more aggressive than others. Most people seem to think that in some areas the fish get teased alot more and become hostile towards divers.
While I was diving in the Similan Islands, there were alot of very big Triggers about and they never bothered us once.
Yet over in Koh Tao several of the Titan Triggerfish were extremely aggressive, chasing and biting divers for no obvious reason. (not during their nesting season.)

 

[DORSETBOY]

Fina, you might well be right.. Ive seen divemasters go upto triggerfish and hit them in the face with sea urchins, dumb huh?! what makes it worse is that it never seems to be them who get attacked, it always seems to be a diver who's minding his / her own business. Another problem is when dmt's or even dm's try and 'sex up' a dive by deliberatley taking divers into areas they are likely to get attacked.. again a pretty dumb thing to do but people do it!

 

[mempilot]

We were deco'ing yesterday, and two of the damn things swam up out of the depths and harrassed us for several minutes. When we started up to our next stop, they dissappeared. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever encountered on a hang. We had to have been 50' off the bottom at the time.

 

[kyler]

Andy, Don't go there...

God bless you armyscuba and thank you for everything.

 

[Spoon]

i had several staredown encounters with these guys.

 

[peterbkk]

I couple months ago, diving out from Chumphon, Thailand (not too far from Koh Tao), a Titan Triggerfish came at me out of no where. Viz was was low due to plankton so I did not see him coming. My first knowledge of his existance was when he bit me on the side of the hand. A big bite that took out a large junk of flesh and caused a lot of bleeding. Once I figured out what was happening, he was coming in for his second attack. I held up my video camera (stupid me), to ward him away. He side-stepped the aluminium housing and bit the light cable. Bit right through the insulation and cut the copper wires ($150). Then I was exiting the area as fast as my fins could fin... A painful and expensive experience.

And, it was not nesting season.

And, Divemaster: "we've never seen an aggressive Titan around here".

Keep your eyes open and give them lots of space.

Oh, and wear a chain mail dive suit and gloves... <S>

 

[clive francis]

I agree with Mania, triggers are only real agressive when they are spawning. Where in Egypt Mania?


:06:

not always true, my friend and i happened across a Titan trigger fish in the red sea, no nest, open sea bed.

anyway we were not that close really, 3 metres away but slowly following it as it went about its business, when all of a sudden it stopped turned around and slowly but surely swam towards us.

i immeadiately turned on my back and started finning but didn't get far as i swam into my budy who was hiding behind me, by this time the Titan was at my fin tips and i was starting to think about engaging the emergency jet propulsion if you know what i mean!

the Titan was bigger than the size of my body so it was BIG, i was kicking like mad and luckily one of my kicks stirred the bed up and it stopped to investigate.

we swam the 10-20m back to the rest of the group who were clearly wetting themselves laughing and we continued the dive.

5 minutes later and several coral mounds and atleast another 20 metres later, guess who appeared not more than a metre or two awway from me at head height and having a real good beady at me!?!

yep that damn Titan had followed us, only this there was 6 to 8 of us scattering to the 4 corners of the red sea to get away from it, any one who could have seen us from above would have died laughing.

my advice is, if it is a big one for your safety and those of the others around you stay well clear, i have seen the scars on a guys face that were put there by a trigger, he said he thought he was being attacked by several as it was swimming so fast and biting him all over his face - it ripped his mask off as well!

 

[riddler]

the Titan was bigger than the size of my body so it was BIG

LOL! I wasn't there, so I'm not going to second guess you here. But I thought Titans are only supposed to get to 30 inches long. How big are you anyway? :05:

Objects seen in divemask are larger than they appear

 

[clive francis]

LOL! I wasn't there, so I'm not going to second guess you here. But I thought Titans are only supposed to get to 30 inches long. How big are you anyway? :05:

Objects seen in divemask are larger than they appear

30 inches is a big fish, especially when they have teeth capable of removing digits and are hell bent on chasing you.

i'm 5'10", it was close enough to guage it was roughly the size of my torso, i wasn't going to hang around and measure it nose to tail for future reference.

 

[riddler]

roughly the size of my torso

Ah - that makes more sense. I was including head, arms and legs. And I'm with you - I don't stick around if ANYTHING in the water is threatening to bite me ... not even my buddy :007: