in a slight head-down position to ensure that you keep your fins off the bottom. Make sure that your gauges and octopus regulator are clipped to your buoyancy compensator to keep them from dragging on the bottom (figure 8-24). If you have the opportunity to be photographed or videotaped while diving, analyze the video or photographs to see how you can improve your skills or reposition your gear to keep it closer to your body. Develop an active conservation ethic and awareness of your environment. There are many active conservation groups around the world, working to ensure that your underwater world will not be destroyed. They do everything from counting fish to establishing moorings for dive boats so the boats will not have to use anchors, which destroy the bottom. Your instructor will have information on local conservation groups in your area. Many dive shops, dive clubs, and other groups sponsor cleanup activities for water areas enjoyed by divers, boaters, and swimmers. Divers can have a tremendous positive effect when they participate in these cleanups because they can actually see the trash and remove it. Check with your local dive shop or dive club for cleanups in your area. Many colleges, universities, dive clubs, dive shops, and other groups offer seminars you can attend to learn more about the underwater environment and its preservation. The more you can learn about conservation, the more prepared you will be to participate in helping preserve and improve our underwater world. HUNTING Chapter 8- Diving Environment If you speak with any diver with more than 20 years of experience, they will probably tell you about the good old days, when game was plentiful and reefs were brimming with life. Sadly, the impact of divers, commercial as well as sport fishermen, and pollution, means many areas are not as healthy as they were in the past. Divers must take responsibility for protecting the world’s underwater resources for generations to come. If you hunt or take game under water, you must be familiar with the fishing regulations in your area. You must know which species you can legally take, the closed and open seasons, catch and size limits, legal methods of take, and any other pertinent information. Divers who violate fishing regulations give all divers a bad name, and they encourage governments to write further regulations that affect all diving. Even if the fishing regulations in your area are generous, allowing substantial bag limits for a particular species on any given day, you must resist taking more game than you need for your personal consumption. Some bag limits exceed what a normal individual can use, but you certainly do not need to take everything you can get. Most marine species are overused, and fishing regulations in most areas have not kept pace with the increasing demands placed on them by all groups. Some areas have serious competition between sport and Diving Environment 189 FIGURE 8-23. KEEP YOUR FINS OFF THE BOTTOM TO PREVENT SAND AND SILT FROM LANDING ON CORAL REEFS. FIGURE 8-24. KEEP YOUR GAUGES AND OCTOPUS REGULATOR CLIPPED TO YOUR BUOYANCY COMPENSATOR.
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