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You see the videos on social media, divers and free divers touching sharks, dolphins, turtles, rays and more. You marvel as they come with in inches of the animal then run a hand over their body. They are fearless, confident and the animal doesn't seem to care. When you are taught Open Water, one of the first things you are told is never to touch tease or interact with animals. I tell my students,
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Recreational dive faux pasMany times dive operations promote this behavior. They "chum" the water to attract sharks or feed them as divers look on. Dive guides pick up crabs or put tiny sea animals in their hand for you to see. Does it make your dive more enjoyable? Sure, but at what cost? Most accidents that happen with animals underwater are due to a defensive response. Many fear a bite from a shark but what is most dangerous is getting hit with its muscular body after a sudden turn. A crabs claws can beak your finger and a turtles jaws can take it off. All because they are afraid of you. |
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You meant well but...Even when you have good intentions, interactions can have bad consequences. Lion fish are an invasive species in the Americas and Caribbean, they have no natural predator. Because of this they eat fish at an alarming rate and that affects the health of the reefs. Many divers decided they would try to teach animals to eat lion fish Sounds like a great idea right? It wasn't, I learned this first hand. |
Real life observation
At a place I dive lion fish are rampant. We saw some videos of people spearing then feeding the lion fish to eels and groupers and thought, maybe we could teach the animals to do the same here. Sure enough the eels came right up to the spear and ate the lion fish Mission accomplished right? Wrong.
What we didn't realize was we taught the eels a behavior that divers mean lion fish We had several instances where eels saw a diver and came straight at them expecting to be fed. They did this even when there was no spear or lion fish. Imagine an eel making a B line for an unsuspecting diver mid water. Many things could happen. A rapid ascent, an unwanted descent, massive air consumption or an eel defensive injury to name a few.
Putting animals and divers in danger
We've all heard the stories about birds and squirrels dying by the feeder in the winter. This happens when animals become dependent on humans and lose their natural instinct. Another drawback is animals become used to human interactions and expect it. As with the lion fish above, petting animals creates a behavior and not every diver is expecting that.
I dive for an Aquarium and divers interacting with animals is forbidden. A sea lion may look cute (they dooooo) but if they playfully nick you and break the skin, that's a serious medical condition. If an animal feels comfortable biting your fins because you played with them, that could stop you from ascending. Or worse imagine a turtle's strong jaws clamping down your air hose because interaction is expected. A divers response might injure the animal and cause them to respond in defense injuring the diver.
You may be thinking, "But they interact with animals in aquariums all the time, isn't that bad too?" Trainers do interact but these animals are rescues. Because of their injuries they would not survive in the wild so there has to be interaction to feed and care for them. That interaction is strictly controlled so neither the trainer or animal is in danger. Same thing with rescues out in the wild, they have special training.
Now I'm not saying if you see an animal caught in a net, don't free them. But beware that animal may not know you are helping them.
Diving is amazing and there is so much to see but we have to be responsible. If we want to keep it amazing we should remain silent observers