in the press

Quote from: xr250dude

Blood sport would IMO encompass sport in which an animal is unfairly chased down, often forced to fight back, deliberately wounded then chased again before being killed. Fox hunting, bull fighting, rooster fighting and what have you would probably be in both our list. The Spanish would disagree though, for them it is cultural and the bull has a fighting chance at killing the Matador. Are you a Spaniard?

I draw the line at hunting and IMO hunting, of which spearfishing is a subset does not entail these elements. The chase is fair and there is no needless suffering, no over kill.

It is a blood sport alright. I've seen the fish wriggle & stress to wrestle free, with such an inherent instinct to survive, these poor fish have no chance against powerful pneumatic guns coupled with scuba advantage that cause devastating haemorrhage. At times when these fish are brought up alive, they make bone-chilling grunts as they fight for their last breath for more than an hour before dying. Wouldn't that constitute 'NEEDLESS SUFFERING?' How cruel is that???

One instructor shot a barracuda at 10metre depth but missed the vital point and the fish made a dash into the deep. The 2nd instructor managed to grab onto the tank valve of the 1st instructor but he too, got dragged along. Then the 3rd instructor saw what was happening, grabbed the 2nd instructor’s tank valve and all three of them got towed to 35 metres depth. By then, the barracuda could not tug at the three divers laden with weights and scuba tanks anymore and one could only imagine how it had to surrender its life to three buffoons who thought it was a manly sport to hunt using pneumatic guns and scuba. Well, the upside is, all three of them has retired from teaching.

Spearhunting in a marine park, is cowardly and dastardly as stewards of the reef like us who spend time ‘taming’ the fish, octopus, sharks in the vicinity have spent countless of dives and not to mention resources just so that divers can get to enjoy the marvel of marine interaction at any given dive site.

Have you ever had a Giant Grouper come out to greet you or allow you to photograph it at close range? Have you had octopuses that play games of give and take with its eight arms while you have two hands and bad coordination??? Have you ever encountered a Volkswagen-sized Napoleon Wrasse with eyes as big a saucer, come up to about 2 metres from you while you are documenting stuff on your slate, counting your discoveries, only to have the whole family of them come to check you out too???

Napoleon wrasses survive in a family. When the matriarch is taken out, the rest will just die.......an observation that we, several instructors who patronise Tenggol island, have observed after each time after a spearhunting takes place. We are fed up, picking up dead & floating wrasses with no apparent injuries. We are fed up because we have had to dive & wait for them to recognise us to come near AFTER HUNDREDS OF ATTEMPTS. We are fed up because they all have names & to see them die is something so excrutiatingly painful.

Here, just take a look at what a catch is all about. Then I'll leave it up to the rest to decide if it's a blood sport or not. The person in the picture has given his permission to publish this picture and he too, was an instructor who has now ceased his operation and his destructive practices in marine parks.

Quote from: evo5555 on September 15, 2008, 08:12:46 PM

Spearfishing in Marine Park is a NO NO. Are they spearfishing for money? The person in picture do know about his target, and the fish, is a giant "Lou Shu Pan" a.k.a Kerapu Tikus looks so big and good...It is expensive in restaurant and very tasty...

Hi evo, this is not a Lou Shu Pan aka Barramundi Cod but a Loong Dhan aka Grouper or Epinephelus sp. A barramundi cod looks like this:-



......and it's becoming rarer than jewels now. When you conduct a Reef Check, this specie will be listed in the Fish Transect to indicate the health of the reef if you do see one. A lot of marine fish are bio-indicators which divers fail to realise the detriment they can cause if they take them out immaturely. For instance,  groupers are protogynous hermaphrodites, having the female reproductive organs come to maturity before the male. When threatened or the male is taken out of the harem, the largest, most dominant female in the group will change sex to become a male.

When someone hunt on a reef, not only are the largest fish removed from the population, but the social/threat cues that trigger sex change are interrupted. Thus, fishing that concentrates on aggregations results in smaller fish with fewer eggs, and ultimately leads to loss of males. This is compounded by loss of fish that are changing sex because they act more like males than like females and are thus more vulnerable to capture. No males, no sex, no babies, no fish. Do we want that? Protecting males and grouper populations (or any big reef fish) in general should be profound because protecting males means protecting specific habitats where males reside, and because protecting populations involves protecting spawning sites. These sites often form the very heart of the marine parks.

Would this reason be justified enough to report hunters in our sanctuaries???

These are the fellas (thoise with spearguns and who use them) who should right put under ISA, not the journalist, politicians and bloggers....