From The Daily News of Open Water Swimming
The fallout from Penny Palfrey's 68-mile swim from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman continues. While local authorities completed their independent investigation yesterday and have followed up with the Associated Press for distribution, Penny continues to be harassed in multiple ways including the posting of fake Facebook pages.As a result of the issues, the world's open water swimming associations are considering implementation of new Wildlife Protection Policies. In particular, The Daily News of Open Water Swimming will keep tabs on the new policies to be adopted by the Farallons Islands Swimming Association.
In addition, organizations like the Cape Long Distance Swimming Association in South Africa and the Cook Strait Swimming Association already have reasonable, albeit not widely known, procedures vis-a-vis marine life. In these locations, open water swimmer often encounter marine life. Issues such as use or non-use of Shark Shields and shark cages will be addressed.
Additionally, the requirement of swimmers being immediately pulled from the water when sharks are seen may be adopted. While the recent focus of attention has been exclusively on sharks, it will be interesting to see if the new Wildlife Protection Policies will also address encounters and interaction with whales, porpoises, turtles, coral, fishing habitats and perhaps even jellyfish. It will also be interesting to see if the new Wildlife Protection Policies will be accepted, adopted or modified by individual race directors from Melbourne to Manhattan and Seattle to Sicily.
When the investigation findings are released by an independent third party, The Daily News of Open Water Swimming will immediately provide the links to this information.
Photo courtesy of Image by Spike.
Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source
3 comments:
Like Mr Kozlovich I operate at a level where I solicit donations for environmental causes from Corporate sponsors. These insane attack tactics are my biggest obstacle. Corporations don't want any association with these destructive practices and will not open their checkbooks or provide help. One thing I am sure of - these haters have another agenda. They do far more harm than good.
I agree that there are many bandwagon jumpers among environmentalist that do more harm than good.
I also think there are people and organizations out there that do give a damn about sharks and the environment, and without them, sharks, and our planet, will be doomed.
I'm still a little skeptical of the official findings. But reading this blog response, of the actions of open water swimming and how well thought-out plans will be implemented is encouraging.
Penny Palfrey has raised awareness of the need for shark conservation. If no sharks were killed on this swim, I apologize on behalf of the bloggers and environmentalists who resort to personal attacks and jump to conclusions.
If sharks were killed, it looks like there's a well-laid out plan to reduce this kind of thing from happening again.
Penny Palfrey, no matter what, did something remarkable. And we'll do a much better job of protecting sharks and the planet we inhabit if we do it together.
I've adjusted my blog accordingly.
Thanks Koz!
I'm glad we're moving forward and returning to sanity. I feel good about being an environmentalist again.
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