Dive guide Scares Puffer Fish to Get it to Blow Up
By: Torben Lonne
Are puffer fish poisonous and is it safe to touch one? Yes and no. You should never touch a puffer fish!
This video was shared with DIVEIN.com on our Facebook page with the question: is this dangerous behavior for a diver?
When I saw this I got so angry. Not at the person who shared it, but at the dive guide. He clearly wanted to put on a show for his guests, and therefore decided to use this porcupine pufferfish as his entertainment props.
Pufferfish are poisonous, containing enough tetrodotoxin venom to kill 30 humans. That’s 1,200 times more lethal than cyanide. The diver in the video is, therefore, both irresponsible and quite stupid.
We earlier covered a related topic where a new dive guide didn’t know how to behave toward dive guests with this behavior: You can read and join the discussion here: The Bad Diver and Aquatic Awareness
The worst dive behavior
I’m really sad to share a video like this, but I feel it’s the only way to stop a behavior like this.
It’s a bad practice to touch anything underwater, but to deliberately chase and catch a pufferfish is just cruel. It also leads to destructive behavior with negative effects on the future of the ocean and the whole dive industry. You can read our guide on becoming a sustainable diver.
Do Pufferfish die when they puff up?
In the video, the biggest concern is not if they die, it’s what happens to the pufferfish when the dive guide makes it blow up.
When a puffer fish puffs up, it takes in water to increase its size. This violently forces the puffer’s organs to be pressed to the side, inside the body causing the organs to flatten. This creates an extreme amount of stress for the pufferfish. In some cases, the pufferfish dies from this stress.
What would you do in this case?
Have you ever seen a diver touch or harm underwater life? What did you do to stop it?
Often scuba divers don’t know the harm caused by the human touch. Some divers are naive and don’t know the impact we can have on marine life. That’s why we, as divers, have a responsibility to share our knowledge and stop the ones destroying the environment.
Comments
What an ignorant idiot. When you are diving, you are a guest in their part of the world. Behave like one!
I even saw an ad from a documentary film maker that features this ‘handling’ of a puffer fish. I hope these guys (escapi.com) have learned since then.
Take only pictures, leave only bubbles!
Yes, thank you all for posting the comments! I had a rescued pufferfish for 16 years and I learned a lot from it. It was healthy until the last two days, and from what looked like skin cancer. There wasn’t anything I could do and it was a tragic event for me. It was estimating about 17-18 years old when it passed away. It came to me wanting to die by my side. I was really touched by the privilege to be able to take care of it. Pufferfish belong in the ocean.
It was intelligent, capable of loving, and could learn from humans. Such as mimic kissing, saying hi, and it knew its name. It enjoyed communicating with us through different means. It would blew up on its own when we were least expecting about once or twice a year, and deflate without a problem. We always stayed away during that time to avoided scaring it. My pufferfish had the intelligence of a cat.
I am appalled by the lack of knowledge and people kept showing pufferfish blowing up. One is on youtube showing a pufferfish being fed carrots. These are animal abuse behaviors and should not be ignored. After seeing this, I found an astounding number of videos people posted. It’s evil that causes some people to think of ways to torture animals for sport. It’s ignorance that causes some people to like the video postings, and it’s arrogance that causes some people after being confronting with the truth and still justifying the behavior. We are not better or superior; we have a responsibility to protect animals and be responsible for our environment.
I love Reading about the awareness that you all have taken care of these wonderful creatures of the sea–marvelous puffers,/ blowers whatever name you want to call them. yes we are all one let’s take care of them.
It just appears that the dive guide wants to show people how amazing the pufferfish is. This guide is ignorant, not necessarily, deliberately cruel.
Is this really regular behavior in those countries? How can people, who works with diving, do this. I can imagine anyone I know doing this.
Couldn’t agree more! Thanks for the article!
This (dive guide) should be sacked ,This would not happen in Maldives,Red sea etc,more common in afro Caribbean countries where standards tend to be way below the acceptable levels of underwater etiquette
We are constantly seeing experienced divers “petting” and handling sealife on social media. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea since inexperienced divers are mimicking this behavior?