Florida's diving community is fighting for better
protection of Blue Heron Bridge, a popular macrolife
dive site in the town of Riviera Beach. It's an
iconic place because underwater enthusiasts have
spotted more than 400 species of fish in its waters
since 1993, according to the Reef Environmental
Education Foundation. Many of them, such as the
polka-dotted batfish, hairy blennies and longsnout
seahorses, are incredibly rare to see. So, tempers
flared high after reports that Moody Gardens,
an aquarium and tourist attraction in Galveston,
Texas, sent a group of four professional divers to
the Bridge with collecting devices, a truck full of
holding tanks, and legal permits to collect 4,300
animals during a week in early October.
There have been conflicting reports as to the
scale of the fish collecting done there, but outrage
by divers went so viral on social media
that Greg Whittaker, Moody Gardens' animal
husbandry manager, went on Facebook with a
video to defend the aquarium's position, saying
they were only targeting a dozen species of blennies
and gobies. Jim Abernethy of Jim Abernethy
Scuba Adventures in Lake Park, a town just north
of Riviera Beach, posted his own Facebook video
to trash Whittaker's response, saying Moody
Garden's permit was for 86 species. He says
Whittaker failed to mention the wrasses, surgeonfish,
stingrays, angelfish, porkfish, parrotfish, octopus,
jawfish, hogfish, hamlets, doctorfish, goatfish,
chromis and the butterflyfish. Moody Gardens'
divers collected 50 each of 86 species, equal to the
4,300 animals they got permits to collect.
Although Whittaker says Moody Gardens'
fish collecting was done in the name of research
and in collaboration with Texas A&M University,
Abernethy alleges that someone from the university
called him to say they had nothing to do
with this tropical fish collecting, he had personally
counted the fish collected, and there were only 36.
(It's rumored that the collectors were three A&M
graduate students doing the dives to earn some
extra cash.)
Abernethy tells us that he didn't believe
Whittaker after hearing an officer from the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)
say at least 100 animals were taken, and that a dive
instructor who was on site videotaping the collecting
mission looked in one of the tanks and saw at
least 200. (He didn't get to see into the seven-footround
tank at the back of the truck.)
Whittaker says the divers went to three different
dive sites, but Abernethy disputes that, saying
two of the dive site names listed on the permits
start with "Blue Heron Bridge." "Is it the policy
of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to
put professional tropical fish collectors in at one
location to remove as many fishes as they can?"
Abernethy asks.
Judging by the number of scuba tanks filled at
a local dive shop for the three fish collectors, and
the shallow depth of the site, Abernethy did the
math and challenges Whitaker's claim to the number
of fishes collected -- it would have meant they
only caught one fish every hour. Unlikely. The
collectors had to drive 110 miles every day to put the captured fish in a large enough tank, indicating
there were a lot more.
Abernethy also believes the FWC officers went
back to the fish collectors' hotel room, where they
might have encountered fish illegally caught, and
forced them to release the fish back into the sea.
Meanwhile, Whittaker is unrepentant, saying
on the Facebook video that the claims by angry
divers are far from reality, and repeating Moody
Gardens would not take fish from a sensitive
ecosystem -- even though they had applied for a
permit to take 4,300 specimens. He says his staff
felt threatened by the conservation advocates
who were there at the time, and that's why they
released some fish back into the water. He talks of
"bigger picture goals."
Abernethy scoffs at that, saying, "Every conservationist
knows it is better to leave animals
in their natural habitat than to take them and
place them in a restricted container." He disputes
Whittaker's claim that Moody Gardens was
removing them from water rich in harmful pathogens,
calling it "comical."
Jenny Wuenschel (Hollywood, FL), who has
done over 200 dives at Blue Heron Bridge, read
with shock and horror about the "atrocities."
"Divers from around the globe come to BHB to
photograph the concentration of unique animals in a small area," she says. "Now, because of lack of
ethics and very poor collection practices, the animals
are gone."
Blue Heron Bridge sits within Phil Foster Park,
which is owned by Palm Beach County. Currently,
the county prohibits anyone from collecting fish
from the bridge, but before these recent complaints,
FWC was handing out permits to groups wanting
to gather sea life for educational purposes. They
have now put that program on hold.
But a few months before the Texas divers came
to town, a few local divers had already banded
together to petition the FWC to make the dive site
a no-take for tropical marine species. They spoke
at an FWC public meeting in June, and the commissioners
agreed to discuss the topic sometime in
2019. The group was pretty upset when they read
diver Tom Poff's Facebook post on October 5, telling
how his group of divers came across four men
with professional-grade collecting devices including
sheet net, and listing many species by then
missing. They posted it on their own Facebook
page, the Blue Heron Bridge Dive Club.
"Talk about the post going viral," says Joanie
Tomlin, a member of that group. "It reached almost
90,000 people and 673 shares on our page alone.
God only knows how far it went, but Trip Advisor,
Yelp, Moody, Texas A&M's Facebook pages, FWC, all commented on it. Really just about anywhere
folks could write reviews, they did."
Tomlin is now an administrator for a new
Facebook page titled Blue Heron Bridge
Preservation Initiative, with more than 600 members
who are passionate about keeping Blue
Heron Bridge a collection-free dive spot. She says
the Facebook posts have turned into more concrete
action.
That Moody event was the catalyst that pushed
the topic up the agenda for the FWC's December
12 meeting. "The public backlash was enough so
that FWC may even vote at its upcoming meeting
to permanently ban collecting, both recreational
and commercial. So, in my opinion it was a winwin.
It wasn't as bad as people made it sound, but
it finally got the results we have been hoping for
over decades."
Even DEMA got involved. CEO Tom Ingram,
together with the organization's legislative advocate, Bob Harris, attended FWC's December 12 meeting
in St. Augustine to add support and state its stance
against fish collecting at Blue Heron Bridge.
The result: The FWC commission made changes
to the draft proposal that, subject to approval
at its February meeting, will "prohibit the collection
of marine life fishery species (species collected
for and managed for the tropical aquarium
trade) within the [marine] park and surrounding
waters." They also approved expanding the
previously proposed area to include additional
waters north of Phil Foster Park. Score one for
the passionate fans of Blue Heron Bridge and its
marine life.
What's your view regarding fish collecting for
aquariums? We'd like to hear from you. Write to
BenDDavison@undercurrent.org, not forgetting to
tell your town and state.
-- John Bantin