Posted by Chris on April 20, 2004 at 22:50:34:
In Reply to: Re: i agree with your sentiments Elaine posted by RealityCheck on April 20, 2004 at 21:38:53:
Dave B., I know you like dive with Rusty on a fairly regular basis, but when you post as a sockpuppet to support his indefensible actions it makes you seem like his subservient chicken.
There is a titanic ethical difference between hunting for food and harassment for fun, which you seem to fail to grasp. Responsible hunters (which you seem not to be) go out of their way not to harm anything other than their desired prey, and respect and utilize that prey to it’s fullest. While not pretty, it is ethically acceptable. Harassment of animals for fun is brutality for cruelty’s sake and is both ethically abhorrent and pathetic. This is the basic concept you seem incapable of grasping.
Rusty as a dive professional and teacher should be setting a good example for his students and the videos he posts on his web site will be used as examples by them. The problem with Rusty’s video is that the angel shark harassment is not the type of behavior that someone who teaches scuba should be offering as exemplary. If Rusty was not embarrassed by the public reaction, why did he pull the video? Yet he still does not understand that principle, or still consciously chooses to set a bad example, which is even worse. The smash urchins and get certified video in which he has his students kneel on the bottom and smash urchins, and then receive their open water patches is yet another bad example video. At the end of a scuba class the students should be able to stay off the bottom and have a basic grasp of the buoyancy concept. Yet his video makes it appear that the only thing they need to know is how to smash urchins. And although there is no shortage of urchins this video again shows Rusty’s basic lack of respect for life and should not be offered as an example of what diving is about.