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To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 12:54:23 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Boats bump into reefs, every dive boat is anchored and anchors damage coral: Boats bump into reefs, every dive boat is anchored and anchors damage coral:

To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 12:57:43 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86355

As divers and snorkelers, we can damage reefs in any number of ways. We could accidentally touch the coral, stressing it out with our skin oils, or kick it and break a piece off with our fins. Our trash could make its way onto the coral colonies, smothering and killing the whole colony. We could use chemicals (ie. sunscreens) that leak into the water and stress already stressed corals. We could place a camera on a sponge to help steady that one great photo, or grab onto the reef to steady ourselves. We could do innumerable things to smash or otherwise kill the reef we’re so drawn to. But there’s another way we impact the reef, and it kills the reef significantly more than anything mentioned above. Anchors are used to keep boats in place. Seems innocent enough. That makes it easy to keep divers in one place. But with any kind of wind, wave, or current action, the boat will pull on the anchor and anchor chain which can do irreparable damage to reefs, sea grass, and any benthic substrate. Even if an anchor is placed away from coral, the bouncing and pulling action of the boat on the anchor chain can rip, smash, or overturn coral in its wake. Either can take out in minutes a coral that has taken 20+ years to grow. They also smash the tips off of coral colonies, leaving white circles of skeleton exposed. More often than not, this ends up killing the coral fragments. While it might not seem like a huge loss for one coral colony to be crushed or dredged out, commonly used dive sites can see several boat anchors an hour during high seasons. If even only 5% of the reef is damaged by these anchors, and the reef manages to grow at an average of 5% a year, the anchor damage is already negating any growth of the ecosystem. But usually anchors do far more than 5% damage. It isn’t unusual to find more than 20% damage along coral reefs from anchors and anchor chains. This also affects areas surrounding the reefs; in high tourist seasons, anchors have been reportedly destroyed over 70% of seagrass beds. https://www.divecompare.com/blog/anchor-damage/ He goes onto say people should tie up their boats to mooring balls but mooring balls or mooring bouys are permanently anchored to the sea bed themselves. So this isn't really a solution:

To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 12:58:38 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86355

What does sunscreen do to coral?

To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 1:00:21 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 86355

Do divers touch / stand on coral? DON’TS:Don’t touch any of the corals.Don’t let your body come into contact with corals.Don’t let your diving equipment hang loose. Secure all equipment so nothing bumps into the corals.Don’t pollute the water with anything.Don’t break of or take any pieces of the corals.divein.com Phuket

To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 1:02:46 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

You know those aquariums people like? With the pretty fish? Those are reef fish taken from coral reefs using cyanide: .... Up to 90 percent of saltwater aquarium fish imported to the U.S. are caught using cyanide. A new petition is calling for the government to crack down. ..... A full 98 percent—yes, almost all—species of saltwater fish currently can’t be bred in captivity on a commercial scale. They must instead be taken from ocean reefs. And how is that done? Most of the time, with sodium cyanide. Sodium cyanide is a highly toxic chemical compound that many fish collectors in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia (the largest exporters of tropical fish) crush and dissolve in squirt bottles to spray on the fish—and the reef and all the other marine life in the vicinity. Stunned, the target fish can then easily be scooped up. Cyanide fishing, is where divers crush cyanide tablets into plastic squirt bottles of sea water and puff the solution to stun and capture live coral reef fish. news.nationalgeographic.com See pretty fish in an aquarium? Since they can't be bred in captivity on a large scale,they are all harvested in an environmentally damaging way.

To: Eric who wrote (76118)	4/14/2017 1:13:22 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

There is an alternative to cyanide fishing for reef fish - blast fishing: Dynamited reefs in the Sulu Sea. Diver inspecting blast crater in coral reef resulting from dynamite fishing, Komodo Marine Park, Indonesia.