Posted by Ken Kurtis on April 11, 2001 at 11:09:48:
In Reply to: It's Time To Be Responsible posted by Jim Hoffmann on April 11, 2001 at 08:53:41:
While we haven't quite gone as far as to ban hunting on our charter trips, for the past 13 years, Reef Seekers Dive Co. has done a number of things (and other shops are encouraged to follow suit) to at least discourage our clientel from hunting.
• We don't sell spearguns.
• We don't sell ab irons.
• We don't sell lobster gauges.
• We don't run "game" trips.
• We have consistently supported the idea of making some, if not all, of the Channel Islands a "no-take zone," even if only for a few years to see if it has any effect on fish pooipulations.
• We have always preached conservation and respect for the ocean and it's inhabitants to our customers.
• I personally have always preached in my basic classes that even "responsible" hunting will cause long-term damage that's hard to assess and that it's better to just enjoy the visual underwater spectacle.
I personally believe that sport divers have a much greater negative impact on the fish populations that we realize because, although we count the animals we catch, we never take into account the ones we maim or mortally wound and leave on the bottom to die or be eaten by other predators.
It's always amazed me how for years, the U.S. has gone into other countires to educate them that there's more money to be made in the tourism of people coming to look at your fish in their habitat than than there is in harvesting those animals out of the ocean and selling them. (Many areas have gone from shark-hunting to shark-watching as a result of this.) It amazes me that we never take our own advice.
Ken Kurtis
NAUI Instr. #5936
Co-owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
Beverly Hills, Ca.