HINDSIGHT is a useful but worrying thing.
I think all of us wish we could have some of our time over to do some things differently.
It is good for our soul when we learn from our mistakes and resolve to do better in the future, but some of us struggle with reality and self-interest.
I spoke recently with Vic Ley, a diver of some 50 years and a past Australian spearfishing champion.
Vic told me he had dived and speared fish in the Great Barrier Reef and along most of the east coast of NSW into Victoria as well as overseas.
He was also part of the slaughter of grey nurse sharks with powerheads and even caught those sharks for aquariums.
I asked him how they managed such powerful animals and Vic said it was easier than you would think.
All you had to do was spear them through the pectoral fin and as they tired just lead them anywhere you wanted.
Vic said the wound usually cleared up but I shuddered at the thought of these trusting animals being abused in this way and, panic stricken, being taken off to an aquarium somewhere, then spending the rest of their lives circling a tank alone and looking for a way out.
I asked Vic if he regretted those days, having seen the grey nurse shark numbers plummet as divers killed dozens of these ‘labradors of the ocean’ (Bob Carr).
The sharks were maligned as maneaters without any evidence at all.
Vic said: “I do now, very much, but back then people thought they were maneaters and it was just what we did.
“It took a while to realize that taking whatever you wanted to could not go on forever.”
I asked Vic if he had dived at Fish Rock and he beamed.
“Yes, I first dived Fish Rock about 50 years ago,” he said.
“It is still one of the best dives you can do but not a patch on what was there back then.”
Vic began arguing for a ban on spearing and fishing at Fish Rock many years ago – and copped a lot of flak for it.
I asked him what it was like back when he began diving at Fish Rock, because some fishermen claim there is no damage being done by recreational fishermen there.
Vic scoffed at that idea and readily agreed he had been part of the problem until he woke up.
He said he had started out there 55 years ago by going out with a fisherman called Pedro.
“No matter where you went diving at Fish Rock there were grey nurses everywhere, you’d see hundreds of big jewfish, there’d be cod, groper, mangrove jacks, snapper and at different times of the year you would get the big cobia, yellowtail kingfish at 70 to 100 pound, schools of those butterfly cod,” he said.
“There would often be 50 to 100 grey nurses around that rock.
“There were a lot of big crayfish you don’t see there any more.
“You don’t see many jewfish there any more; you don’t see many black cod.
“You’d see cod ... you’d see 15 or 20 cod there, they’d live in a little colony and you’d see cod from 20 to ... I got one out of there 120 pound.
“They’re protected now everywhere but Fish Rock is their last stronghold and I’m not sure that is enough if they still let people spear and fish there.
“There were Queensland groper, I mean every time you went there you would see six or eight of them, but not now.
“Seventy to 80 per cent of the fish life that used to be there is gone.
“There were sharks and fish everywhere but they hammered the place until they killed it. Spear fishermen and fishermen did it; you can’t keep taking and taking.
“From the 60s on they did. They started to get better boats, better equipment.
“By bringing in bag limits blue groper are making a comeback because you can’t spear them anymore.
“The pressure on the ocean today is just unbelievable.”
Vic went to the world spearfishing championships in Tahiti in 1965.
Nothing was protected, and the best divers in the world managed just seven fish in the whole of the competition.
“The trouble here is that 90 per cent of the people don’t know what has happened around the world,” Vic said.
“They just don’t understand how many fish there used to be here and won’t have a bar of protected areas.
“How do you convince people we have to do something strong about marine parks now?
“I am dealing with spear fishermen and fishers who have been at it for 15 years and don’t know any better.
“They think because they can catch some fish now that is how it has always been and will be. Well it’s not.
“Maybe they think ‘he used to kill all those fish so why can’t we go out and kill the rest of them?’
“That’s the thing about Fish Rock. I saw it as it was and it’s dear to my heart.
“It’s the only area where I have seen such a mix of tropical and temperate water fish. I have been all over the Great Barrier Reef, the NSW and Victorian coasts but none of it came anywhere near what Fish Rock used to be like.”
I asked Vic what he thought could be done about the future of the critically endangered grey nurse shark.
Vic replied that you will not get all the sites where the sharks aggregate protected.
“You have to pick the most important sites. Fish Rock is the key; it is the one I wanted to get protected,” he said.
“If you try to get Brush Island, Mermaid Reef, Montague Island, Nine Mile Reef, Point Plomer, you can forget about it, but Fish Rock is the most important one.
“It has the greatest number of grey nurse sharks and black cod left on the coast.
“That is the one we should save with a complete sanctuary area around it. For everything.”
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