Illegal , Destructive Fishing

Dynamite fishing was banned in Sri Lanka over 100 years ago, but sadly in a few areas this is practiced illegally.

This is a very destructive form of fishing, killing and damaging a lot of marine life in the area close to where it is done. Plus a lot of the fish are not collected and hence a large qty is wasted.

In this video you can hear the explosions if you switch the volume on, and you can see the reaction of the divers. The explosion most likely is done more than 6 km’s away from the dive site. Maybe this could be a reason for the aggressive behavior of the puffer fish in my previous post. Please feel free to comment on this.

Giant Puffer Fish Attacks Diver!

Are puffer fish poisonous to humans ?

Last week during Rachel’s Advance Open Water Diver course, we had an interesting encounter with a huge Puffer Fish. Just as all the divers descended to the reef this fish swims straight at all the divers and started to look very interested about the divers. Wonder what the divers looked like to this fish.

Within a few minutes the Puffer Fish started to get more curious and wanted to get a closer look at the divers. It looked very aggressive and tried to attack one of the divers. After the dive it was interesting to discuss whether the toxin in the puffer can harm divers during a dive,  Whether all Puffer Fish have spines or is it only the Porcupine Fish family has spines.

Fortunately Rachel had her camera and filmed the Puffer Fish attacking the diver, which will be uploaded here in a few days.