JUPITER, Florida (23 Nov 2003) -- Scuba divers often encounter beautiful and interesting marine life in the waters off Palm Beach County. It's common to swim right by a sea turtle, peer into a hole to spot a moray eel or glide over a nurse shark as it lounges on the bottom. But there's a fine line between observing creatures and disturbing them, as dive leader Randy Jordan of Jupiter learned recently in Hole in the Wall, an underwater cavern off Jupiter. Jordan, 48, owner of the Jupiter Dive Center, grew up in South Florida and has been diving for 30 years. So he thought nothing of trying to coax a porcupine puffer fish from its hole so other divers could see it. Porcupine fish are covered with spines that jut out from a round shape when they puff themselves up. In the past, Jordan had captured a porcupine puffer underwater so it would blow up for a crowd of divers. On this dive, he wiggled his fingers in front of the fish in hopes it would come out looking for food. The fish came out, but not in the way Jordan had expected. "He launched forward and got hold of my pinkie," Jordan said. "Playtime over! Man, that hurt." Jordan was relieved at first because his dive glove wasn't torn. Only when he took his glove off did he realize half of his little finger was missing. The blood cloud was so thick that he couldn't see his hand. He was shocked. So were the emergency-room doctors. The bone was so badly crushed that the missing finger part couldn't be reattached. Jordan has shared his story willingly. He wants to make sure other divers don't make the same mistake. He wrote an account of the incident and included some graphic photos on his dive-shop Web site, www.jupiterdivecenter.com, in hopes of shocking divers into being careful. | | DEMA and Project Aware have been aggressively promoting fish feeding in Florida but isn't this going a bit too far? The National Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Fishes says the porcupine fish (Diodon hystrix) has a single tooth in each jaw that forms a beak, which the fish uses to crush hard-shelled invertebrates and, occasionally, fingers. Other divers told Jordan they never knew puffer fish had teeth or could bite. "They can and do," Jordan said. "Do not mess with the animals. They will defend themselves." SOURCE - Palm Beach Post, Jupiter Dive Center |
