Blacktip Island Marine Parks volunteer fisheries officer Booger Bottoms will be patrolling reefs in a the department’s new rowboat. (photo courtesy of Val Schrader/BIMP)
A cash-strapped Blacktip Island Marine Parks department this week announced—to combat a rising amount of coral damage, litter and poaching—it will begin on-water enforcement of Blacktip Island’s marine park rules with the aid of a small rowboat.
“It’s gotten to be the Wild West out there, with divers, dive operations and fishermen doing whatever they please,” marine parks spokesperson Val Schrader said. “The idea is to put enforcement personnel on the water to cite violators on the spot and hopefully cut down on environmental damage.
“Problem is, we don’t have the money for a motor boat,” Schrader said. “Or a motor. Or gas. With our budget, the best we can do is a used rowboat and a pair of binoculars. It may seem a bit underwhelming, but we have full confidence these patrols will be effective.”
Some on the island questioned the move.
“I get they want to put some teeth in the park rules, but this is all for show,” Gage Hoase said. “I mean, a rowboat chasing power boats . . . you kinda have to want to get caught for them to catch you. End of the day, it’s just Marine Parks doing kabuki theater to build support for a bigger budget.”
Others praised the patrols.
“It was a hoot seeing them doing trial runs last week,” Marina DeLow said. “Booger Bottoms’d start to chase a poacher’s boat, and the boat’d power up be off like a shot. Sometimes they’d let him get aaalmost there before they blasted off. We grabbed chairs and beers to watch.”
Scuba diving visitors were unimpressed.
“I came up from my dive yesterday and some yahoo started yelling about me breaking coral,” Bill Fisch said. “Gave me a written warning. I wadded it up and threw it in the water. Then he wrote another one for littering and told me, ‘Stay out of trouble.’
“Got even with him today, though,” Fisch said. “I swam under his boat and bungeed his oar blades together. He’s probably still trying to get ‘em loose.”
Bottoms defended the patrols.
“Folks can laugh all they want, but I got a reef to protect,” he said. “I may be slow, but I’m wily. They may get away once, but they can’t escape forever. I’m keeping a list. Now, excuse me. I have to go. Slowly. Somewhere there is coral damage happening.”
The Blacktip Times 