Many of us have seen first hand how damaging dynamite fishing can be to the marine environment. I once dived Pedro Blanco, in Chinese waters east of Hong Kong, just after some dynamite fishermen had left. The seabed was carpeted with dead fish, and while we did manage a good lunch out of it, it was very depressing to see. More recently I dived a Japanese wreck near Malapascua and found hundreds of dead and dying fish lying all over the bottom.
But I suspect most of us don’t consider dynamite fishing as being dangerous to us as divers. Well perhaps we should because apparently a diver was killed in Vietnam after some fishermen mistook him for a big fish. They threw in an explosive, but when they went down to get their catch they realised they’d killed a diver. Police have said they will be charged with killing the diver as well as destroying aquatic resources and the illegal use of explosives.
When I first read this I thought it was an urban myth like the one about the diver found dead in a forest after a forest fire. Or perhaps an April Fool, but the story seems to have come out on 24 March. Both CDNN and Divernet have this story on their websites.
