Here's a sore spot with me. I pretty much grew up in the Keys. I used to collect there, different places, some before the majority of the sanctuaries were up. As I grew up, I noticed less and less to collect. That's when I stopped collecting. I guess I'm a little hypocritical, since I buy fish, and they were collected from other countries, but somehow it's different. I dive Broward's reefs, and they used to be amazing when I was 15, and now, I'm 33, and they're just depressing. I've watched diadema (longspine) urchins all but disappear, conchs are almost gone now, lobsters are getting to be rarer and rarer, etc. Now, there's still tons of brittle stars, so I won't complain about those in general, but I won't collect them anymore. When I dive Broward's reefs, seeing the cyanobacteria all over the place, covering dying coral heads, and realizing that collectors are taking tangs,angels, snails, hermits, gorgonians, tunicates, etc etc etc (algae eating and filter feeding organisms) It's almost sickening what we've done to such a great ecosystem. I still dive it, and I still wave off the cyano, and I still turn over rocks to see what I can find (more bristleworms than you'd ever care to see!). Anyway, I'm trying to appeal to everyone's sense of good nature and say leave the stuff you find behind, the ocean needs it more than we do.
A cool thing to do, on the other hand, is to tote a little raft or bucket around with you and shake out the sargassum weed. It's amazing the life you'll find in these, and most of it will end up dead on the shore anyway. I'll be starting a tank just for this stuff when the next FMAS show comes around. Tiny triggerfish, sargassum fish, pipefish, seahorses, shrimps, neat crabs that blend right in with the weed... I've even found tiny mutton snapper! Enjoy the sights, enjoy the wildlife. We conscientious divers have a phrase, take only pictures, leave only bubbles. It took me awhile to come around, but I understand we need the critters!
