I personally find this a hard pill to swallow. I grew up in Michigan where it is a felony to remove artifacts from the shipwrecks found on Michigan bottomlands. I was taught to take only pictures, leave only bubbles very early in my diving career, and its something I carry with me today. Granted, Great Lakes shipwrecks have never contained much in the way of treasure, but up there we consider the shipwreck itself the treasure.
What sticks in my craw when it comes to treasure hunting is that the shipwreck is considered worthless junk in the way of the treasure hunters precious treasure. I attended presentation by Della Ireton-Scott, an archaeologist with the Florida Public Archaeology Network (which is designed to work with and bring archaeology to the public, by the way), where she showed some before and after pictures of a Spanish shipwreck from either the 1715 or 1733 fleet (the name eludes me at the moment) in the Keys that was found and salvaged back in the 50s or 60s. Her before picture was taken from a book written about treasure hunting in the Keys and it showed massive hull timbers protruding from a large stone ballast pile. The caption read something along the lines of tearing into the ballast pile in search of the treasure. And then she showed a picture of whats left of that same shipwreck today virtually nothing. You can barely make out the keel. The portion of the shipwreck that had been preserved by the ballast pile for several hundred years now only took 30 or 40 years to deteriorate once exposed by the treasure hunters. What did they find you ask? Very little: the Spanish salvaged most of the treasure shortly after it sank. What was once a priceless relic that belonged to the people of Florida has been reduced to a few rotten timbers lying on the ocean floor. What about the Atocha? How much of that shipwreck is left after the Fishers have been blasting away at it with their mailboxes for over 25 years? Last I checked nobody is making these shipwrecks anymore. Oh, and here is my favorite. The drive through the Keys is dotted with deteriorating cannons along the roadside. I bet they looked great the first ten or so years, but now without any sort of conservation they are falling apart. However, if they had been left in place on the shipwreck they would have been preserved for another several hundred years. Now if I see cannons on any of these shipwrecks they are most likely replica cannons made of concrete provided by the State of Florida in effort to undo what was done by unchecked treasure hunting.
I sincerely hope that, if measures are passed to open up more treasure hunting in Florida it is done so in a smart manner. Im confident that Florida wont just hand out permits to every diver with dollar signs in their eyes and homemade mailboxes on their boat, but there needs to be a certain amount of training and oversight involved in the salvage process so that priceless shipwrecks do not get destroyed in pursuit of the almighty dollar. However, the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research is not staffed (or funded) to do any of that, and, as money strapped as Florida is, I dont see that changing anytime soon. As a Florida resident and avid diver, the mere thought of going back to the old ways of treasure hunting gravely concerns me, and Im certain Im not the only one who feels this way.
