“Take only photographs and leave only footprints”?: An experimental study of the impacts of underwater photographers on coral reef dive sites

Abstract

Impacts caused by recreational scuba diving on coral reefs vary widely among different dive locations and individual divers. Linear modelling was used to explore a range of individual and situational risk factors associated with divers who damaged corals in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Recreational divers were followed for 10–15 min, and all contacts with, and damage to corals were recorded. Information on the dive site, diving experience, gender, and use of an underwater camera were recorded. Thirty-two out of 214 divers (15%) damaged or broke corals, mostly by fin kicks (95%). Impacts were most likely to be caused by male divers, in the first 10 min of the dive, at sites with a large abundance of branching corals. Specialist underwater photographers caused more damage on average (1.6 breaks per 10 min) than divers without cameras (0.3 breaks per 10 min). To explore the effects of gender and use of a camera further, we issued single-use underwater cameras to 31 randomly chosen divers and compared their behaviour to a control group. Use of a camera had no influence on the rate or amount of damage caused by these naı̈ve photographers, but male divers were more likely to break corals and caused significantly more damage, on average, (1.4 breaks per 15 min) than female divers (0.3 breaks per 15 min). Variability in the amount of damage caused by divers in our sample reflected the very different underwater behaviours exhibited by specialist and non-specialist photographers, and male and female divers. Greater understanding of the causes of harmful behaviours by these groups will allow better targeting of on-site interpretative and cautionary information and may prove to be a more palatable management strategy than regulation of site use.