Venice Over Hunted?

[mlynch21]

Lately i have been having this really.... i dunno "selfish" feeling about the Venice fossiling. I just looked at the scuba west charter schedule and noticed they are packed full for almost everyday for the next 2 weeks. It's kind of ironic that they are just depleting there only claim to fame.

12-20 plus people a day! (along w/anyone else who beach dives or has their own boat) There is no missing the fossil areas from all the dive boats! Soon venice is going to be like the peace river and only the very remote or hard to find spots will produce any decent hunting.

Yes i know i dont have any more or less of a right to be there than anyone else. it just seems like the fossil beds will be over hunted in the not so distant future if things keep going and growing at this rate or maybe there is more gold in them there hills than i realize. I'm betting that 15 years from now i will be telling my kids about the good old days.

what is all the other venice divers take on this?

 

[Sh@rkW@tcher]

IMHO it took several million years to create those fossil beds. If it takes 10% as long to clean it out, that will still be several lifetimes worth of toothing.

 

[matts1w]

Lately i have been having this really.... i dunno "selfish" feeling about the Venice fossiling. I just looked at the scuba west charter schedule and noticed they are packed full for almost everyday for the next 2 weeks. It's kind of ironic that they are just depleting there only claim to fame.

12-20 plus people a day! (along w/anyone else who beach dives or has their own boat) There is no missing the fossil areas from all the dive boats! Soon venice is going to be like the peace river and only the very remote or hard to find spots will produce any decent hunting.

Yes i know i dont have any more or less of a right to be there than anyone else. it just seems like the fossil beds will be over hunted in the not so distant future if things keep going and growing at this rate or maybe there is more gold in them there hills than i realize. I'm betting that 15 years from now i will be telling my kids about the good old days.

what is all the other venice divers take on this?

Isn't this just the Florida way with diving, fishing, outdoors, beaches, birding, living, etc...... in general? It seems we have no economy here outside of having something really beautiful/amazing, then selling it away until it crumbles.

Sorry- Im kind of bitter right now. My personal economy is taking a beating thanks to the budget shortfall in education.

 

[mlynch21]

IMHO it took several million years to create those fossil beds. If it takes 10% as long to clean it out, that will still be several lifetimes worth of toothing.

Thats a thought... not to be negative but i will play devils advocate. The reefs off the keys took many thousands and thousands of years to form but we have managed to overstress them in the past 20 years to the point of disgusting. Maybe a better analogy would be oil... millions of years to create yet it hasn't taken us very long to put that supply in question. While it has taken millions of years to create venice fossil beds i don't think it will take but a very small fraction of that to deplete them. With maybe thousands of teeth leaving everyday keep in mind we only have access to a fraction of what venice has in its ground because we must search the surface and only so much will "surface" between seasons. I don't view the venice diving as any different than the peace river hunting (both river beds) which was very heavily hunted over the past 20 - 30 years and now decent finds are now much much much more difficult to come by...

But i still hope Moteman is right...

 

[mlynch21]

Isn't this just the Florida way with diving, fishing, outdoors, beaches, birding, living, etc...... in general? It seems we have no economy here outside of having something really beautiful/amazing, then selling it away until it crumbles.

Sorry- Im kind of bitter right now. My personal economy is taking a beating thanks to the budget shortfall in education.

Florida way? I think its the human way...

For once I think everyone can feel your pain with the economic woes... your not the only bitter person. Best of luck riding the storm.

 

[Steve Thacker]

Interesting - I have been running charters out here for eight years and have not run out of teeth yet. I just purchased a tooth a customer found two weeks ago from my boat. The tooth cost me $1000. When I started running charters for the first several years, there was rarely another boat out here but the original fellow who discovered the off-shore fossil bed. At the end every summer the meg teeth get pretty thin, then after the winter they are laying on the surface. In February of this year we found some great teeth for those who could handle the cold.

I have noted this year that many other charter boats are now also running charters to the fossil bed. So yes, they will get picked up quicker but they will be back sitting on the surface come late winter and early spring. It happens every year!

As for fossil hunting on the beach, nothing has ruined the beach hunting as much as the beach renourishment projects. If you talk to those that dove Venice Beach back in the 70's and 80's it was awesome. If you want to blame someone, then blame the City of Venice for covering up their greatest tourist attraction! Don't blame me or my company however. I don't have time for it.

 

[mlynch21]

If you want to blame someone, then blame the City of Venice for covering up their greatest tourist attraction! Don't blame me or my company however. I don't have time for it.

Mr Thacker I suggest you re-read my post if you think i am blaming you or your company... just backing up some thoughts with hard data. I assume you are associated with scuba west since thats the only company i even mentioned in passing?

Before getting defensive think of it this way... I am going to venice today. I don't particularly blame myself... i also mentioned that i didn't have any more or less of a right to be out there than anyone else. Including the charters.

Don't jump all over one of your customers Mr Thacker because "i don't have time for it..." But i would think that you especially would have plenty of interest/time to think about this issue because your business is based on a finite resource. 8 years is not that long and if you think its going to be like that forever i strongly disagree. Ask anyone who used to hunt the peace river... Otherwise maybe one spring there won't be much for your customers to find... or maybe venice will get hit by a hurricane and the beds will be covered in several feet of sand.

Just a friendly duscussion about some thoughts i have been having the past couple years.

Oh whats up with the tooth your customer found that you purchased for 1000 dollars... that must have been one hell of a tooth. Pictures? or at least a description!

 

[Steve Thacker]

I will photo and post the tooth when the boat gets back. I am associated with Florida West Scuba School since I am the owner. As for the effect of my business I have thought about it. Keep in mind that one of the reasons my boat is so full is that people enjoy diving with us, most of them whether they find teeth or not. And, as I said, this dive has become popular in the past few years, a direct result I suspect of many divers watching us having fun. Yes you mentioned my company and you commented on the number of divers I take out - with an exclamation point. I thought I had a right to defend myself. Oh well. Happy diving!

 

[divindoc]

Through his charters @ Fl.West Scuba School, Steve provides great dives and service to his customers. Unlike some of his commercial competitors, he follows all Coast Guard and City of Venice regulations pertaining to commercial charters. His charters are popular because his customers recognize value and reward him with their loyalty. I imagine the majority of his customers don't have their own boats to use for these dives and wouldn't be able to have this experience were it not for him.

As to the depletion of a finite resource, one could make the same argument for picking up shells from the beach, hunting dredge spoils for fossils, etc. - or we could bouy off the entire area and allow no boats or divers in, but what would that accomplish? Then nobody would ever see these fossils.

 

[Bastian76]

I wonder about that everytime I go down. Thank you for the history of the area Steve, that's a refreshing outlook.

I think alot of this has to do with the "Cash and Treasures" TV series that's on the Travel Channel. That's what got me started. I've gone gold panning and sifting for gems and have talked with owners at those location about the dramatic increase in business since the series started airing. As with anything it's fad that I think will plateau and then drop off to more substainable levels in the coming years, especially if gas prices continue to increase ().