418 Dive Log Australasia JUNE 2026.pdf

become the norm and at the same time to allow shark populations to increase. I suggest that fisheries do something to restore the balance such as create dozens of fish hatcheries to bolster the fish populations and also to create marine reserves to allow fish stocks to recover. It is unacceptable for hungry sharks to attack humans. It helps to understand some basic shark ecology, psychology and behaviour. Sharks live in a territory that has enough food to sustain its family. These resident sharks have fought off competition to have the right to own that reef. They will patrol and guard their home reef. To them, someone stealing their fish is a direct threat and they will defend their right to ownership of that reef. The fish you spear or catch on a line belongs to them; they claim ownership. They see you stealing their food, their livlihood so to speak. They will defend their territory same as we do. If you try to steal a Lion’s kill, watch out! I predict that, Great White shark attacks will increase over the next few years while this ecological unbalance is allowed to continue. Returning to the Power of Creation of Mother Nature. The ocean can recover from overfishing quickly, given a chance. Marine reserves will enable fish to breed, recover from over fishing and to build up their numbers. If we ever get to thirty per cent marine reserves, everyone will be thrilled. Fishers will catch far more and bigger fish and divers will see far more abundant seas filled with life, the way they should be. It is high time to give Mother Nature a helping hand. This issue of Dive Log Australasia is yet another blockbuster magazine filled with great reading. Make sure your share it your friends and your dive buddies so they can get the BUZZ. Dive Log is all about the celebration of Marine life, motivating people to dive with a sprinkling of education, great photography and creativity. In this issue, Dive Log continues its absolutely free series of articles on Underwater Photography. This issue is on U/W photography at Night. This comes with its own series of challenges and opens the door to so many extra-ordinary encounters and adventures. Best of all it is free and it has been written with the goal of striving for excellence and toward the lofty aim of becoming the best series on this most difficult of all types of photography. It is jam packed with hints and tips gleaned from decades of active photography as well as a cornucopia of excellent photos for you to enjoy and developp your skills. This issue has awesome articles on Nudibranchs by David Mullins: Des Williams’ great story about regulators made from Car Horns from backyard scuba manufacturers of the 1960’s. Vadim Belakhov has a great article on Freediving with Tiger Sharks, Mathew Kempton goes diving with giant Catfish in France; our Marine Naturalist goes to Lembeh to revisit Darwin and Wallace’s theory of Evolution. The feature on the SNUFFLEUPAGUS, the Hairy Ghost Pipe fish by G Short and D Harasti, who identified it as a new species is inspiring. There are is diving in Jervis Bay with Humpbacks with Woebegone Dive, Cone Shells, dive travel to Cocos Is and Wakatobi. What a whizz bang, doo dangling magazine, all using real H. I.; Human Intelligence, actually written by humans using imagination and creativity. No A.I. zombie machine talk was used in Dive Log. Humans beware, Sky Net is here and it wants more control as tech masters become trillionaires Try not to let the rise of the machines take over your mind; Remember your freedom to create is always available in Dive Log. Send in your best articles and photos to me and enjoy the thrill of getting published. Then head out on your next great adventure under the waves.

KINSHIP WITH ALL LIFE

The greatest gift of all is having the power of creation; the ability to create offspring. In my case, being a glad dad three times over. Every living thing can make babies. We share this privilege with plants and mushrooms. Grass creates pollen and eggs, seeds; worms produce male and female gametes. This undervalued gift from Mother Nature is all so marvellous. Many lifeforms use intensive reproduction as a survival mechanism to maintain the survival of their species. Snapper, Trevally crabs produce millions of eggs each year. Biologists estimate that there could be ten million lifeforms current inhabiting Earth. Palaeontologists estimate that since the dawn of creation, as many as four hundred million types of living species may have inhabited Earth. That, of course, means that about a mere 2 to 3 per cent are alive and 97% are extinct. This super abundance of life is nothing less than incredible. Marine lovers are luckier than most. We get to see so many marvellous miracles of super abundance of life every time we go diving. At the moment, massive schools of baitfish such as Yellowtail, proliferate in our local waters. Phalanxes of phytoplankton, zillions of zoological marvels float about in the water as plankton. Each one a miracle of creation appearing right before your eyes. It is true! There is magic all around for those who have eyes to see. This is what they mean when they say that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The Beatles song says it best… “because the sky is blue, it turns me on.” Sadly, the human race has put enormous pressure on Mother Nature. Over the last few centuries, we have seen mass extinctions, collapsing fisheries and oceans emptied of life. Those 19th century big game hunters never stopped to ask the question; ‘What right do we have to kill a whale or an Elephant?’ Hunters who had killed dozens of lions in Africa were held in high regard. Really?? Nowadays, many of us regard them as having committed criminal acts of violence and waste against Mother Nature. However, they did not know any better. The earliest days of scuba diving were all about getting an Army Surplus rebreather and a spear gun and then heading off to kill all of the big fish. Within a couple of years, all of the big marine life around were gone. Those early fish murderers were executing a gross act of vandalism against the ocean. What was left? a photo of a “brave superhero” with a silly grin next to dead fish twice their size hanging upside down on a weigh scale. They just killed the breeding stock. The end result is what we see when we go diving today. I see empty seas; sparse fish populations, many fish struggling to overcome wounds from human aggression and far too many lifeless barren dive sites that are desolate and lonesome. Humans have to wake up and quickly. The eight billion human predators have to reassess their exploitation of Mother Nature. It is way past time to give Mother Nature a helping hand, she needs it!. As always, a little bit of science can add clarity to the solution. Remember the very basic science of Food Webs. Trillions of plants feed billions of zooplankton and small fish. It takes millions of fish to feed thousands of sharks. Now, enter the human carnivore in huge numbers. Overfishing means that as shark populations increase, sharks have an increasingly difficult time finding food. That is because thousands more higher order predators, human fishers have entered the food web and compete directly with sharks for a finite resource. These two-legged predators are actually in direct competition for fish with sharks. Fishers have a right to fish. Yes! But they are stealing the livlihood of sharks. Fisheries management has allowed overfishing to OUR COVER PHOTO Pregnant Tiger Shark called ‘Havannah’ by Vadim Belakhov photographed while free diving from Fuvahmulah, in the Maldives

Happy diving. Mike

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Divelogaustralasia #418 - JUNE ‘26

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