A couple of weeks ago , I felt two bombs go off underwater. I was diving off Olango island near Cebu in the Philippines. The second of these was so loud that it spooked the shoal of fish I was watching, and made my adrenaline run hard for a few moments. Yet on the surface, there was no evidence of nearby bombing at all - indeed we were in a marine protected area with several dive and snorkelling vessels and a community patrol boat with no story to tell; the bombing must have been miles away, yet its underwater effect reached out way beyond its immediate impact.Here in Sabah, something similar seems to be happening. Whilst I have never heard fish bombs in TARP, I have been told by others that they sometimes hear them - not exploding in the Park itself but several miles away up or down the coast. It is illegal in Sabah. But three days ago, newspapers report that a man killed himself and his estranged wife with one here in KK. And now it seems the Police will step up their efforts to enforce the law against fish bombing. They say they have caught five fish-bombers already this year; here's hoping this sad tale will truly mark the end of a not only hugely destructive and unsustainable livelihood practice, but a humanly dangerous one. An instructor friend of mine in the Philippines was near a bomb when it was detonated underwater and nearly killed, but challenging the boatmen involved was physically risky and he says the police are themselves afraid of the violence of fish bombers in the Philippines. Let's hope it is different here when (if) the police step up their campaign.
Here's a regular friend at Hanging Garden off Gaya island, photographed on 28th December 2006 ,who's cousins elsewhere in the state might benefit: the giant reef dwelling Broadclub cuttlefish Sepia latimanus (Mollusc Family SEPIIDAE).
