Hazardous Marine Life

In the last issue of Alert Diver we shared the harrowing story of an attack on a fossil-hunting river diver by a 13-foot alligator. In this issue we’re bringing you more educational articles related to hazardous marine life encounters.

Bill Ziefle

Monitoring Dive Incidents and Drug Use

The day-to-day tasks of injury monitoring at Divers Alert Network include tracking dive fatalities by sifting through emails, news alerts, and social media to collect information about recent events. Our goal is to report to the dive community our findings on what people report to us or what we encounter in our research. 

drugs and AR-15 on a pallet

Mangrove Forests

Mangroves matter. They are unique, complex habitats that guard shorelines. They connect the land to the sea, house a diverse range of animal and plant life, and reduce the impacts […]

hawksbill sea turtle

Chumming the Waters

Getting to the wreck of the Caribsea off the coast of North Carolina can take up to an hour and a half. While traveling to the dive site, I regrettably ate a prepackaged lunch with an indecipherable expiration date I had purchased the night before.

diver clearing regulator

FIJI

The island country of Fiji is part of Melanesia in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Volcanic activity more than 150 million years ago formed this archipelagic nation of 333 islands, about 106 of which are inhabited. 

Vibrant corals at Rainbow Reef’s Rainbow Passage.

Silvia Ferrari

Known for her work in developing sophisticated algorithms and methods for managing and coordinating complex systems, Silvia Ferrari has applied her expertise to integrating scuba diving technology with robotic systems.

PhD student Sushrut Surve experiments with the RealTHASC

California’s Channel Islands

It’s 5 p.m., officially boarding time, and the floodgates have opened. Eager, impatient divers synchronously emerge from their cars and begin to haul carts full of gear down the dock. We’re right there with them, jostling to get a prime spot for our tanks.

California Sea Lion