Open Season
Last weekend marked the opening of lobster
season in California waters. Scuba divers all over
the state celebrated by grabbing their dive lights
and jumping overboard at the stroke of midnight to
grab as many of the spiny crustaceans as luck and
the law would allow. More than a few football fans
probably wolfed down lobster meat instead of pizza
at halftime yesterday. I'm sure some of my
coworkers and diving friends braved the red tide to
grab some red tails.
California Department of Fish and Game
regulations currently limit the take of lobsters to
seven. That's seven on any given day during lobster
season. I won't attempt to dispute the assuredly
scientific and well-researched analysis that goes
into determining this limit every year. However,
given how popular the marine animals are with
hunters and how enthusiastically they're hunted, I
wonder just how the ocean can sustain the stock of
these creatures.
Hunting, in fact, is something I've never been
able to understand—or stomach. Whenever I sink
below the surface and swim about the blue waters of
the Pacific, I am amazed anew by the beauty and
serenity of undersea life. To dive down and rip
scallops from the reef, to skewer a fish as it
peacefully swims through the water, to tear a
writhing lobster out of its rocky home... such
actions seem antithetical to the enjoyment of scuba
diving. When a coworker and I recently dove in
Mission Bay to take some water samples, we passed
the time between samplings by looking for lobsters
under the rocks. To me, discovering the hiding
crustaceans brought a feeling of awe. To him, it
was a game, practice for future hunts. While I
peeked into the crevices, simply watching the wary
lobsters as they watched me, he reached in, grabbed
the hapless animals and yanked them out—some
of them females laden with thousands of eggs.
And when it comes to lobsters in particular, I
cannot fathom how a hunter can take his catch home
and cook it. Unlike conventional fishing, where one
kills the fish quickly and more or less painlessly,
lobster hunting calls for keeping the animal alive
until ready for cooking, at which time it's tossed
alive into a cauldron of boiling water. I can't
think of a more inhumane way to cook a meal.
Lobster meat has long been, and will likely
continue to be, a succulent delicacy found on most
high-end seafood menus. Lobster hunting will
similarly remain a popular sport amongst divers as
long as it's legal. And I will remain unable to
comprehend how a diver can reconcile his or her
respect for and enjoyment of the undersea realm
with the disrespectful and joyless kill of its
denizens strictly for sport.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
|
|
