RARE RAY SIGHTING ADDS TO CALL FOR PROTECTED MARINE NURSERY AT KATA
Along-term expat with more than 30 years’ diving experience is hoping officials will heed the call to help preserve the overlooked abundance of special marine life in Kata Bay.
Kata Beach is well known as a popular beach for tourists and is popular as an anchorage for yachts, but very little is known ‒ or appreciated ‒ of the role Kata Bay plays as a nursery for marine life in the area, explains Stuart Childs, who has dived the bay more than 1,000 times over the past eight years.
“I have been diving for 30 years and have dived in South Africa, Sri
Lanka, the Red Sea, Maldives, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and of course Thailand,” Stuart notes.
“I started shore diving at Kata Beach in the high season of 2016 and have continued to do so every high season from November to April every year since. What started as casual dives up and down the reef at the north end of Kata Beach progressed to exploring the whole Kata Beach bay area.”
It became evident very quickly that as vibrant and varied the marine life on Kata reef was, with sea turtles, barracuda, colourful reef fish and Moray eels regularly seen, much rarer and interesting marine life was to be found living off the reef out in the sand areas, Stuart noted.
“As the months and years have gone by, I have found rare species of marine life that are rarely associated with Thailand and of which divers around the world travel vast distances to the Philippines and Indonesia paying to dive and photograph,” he says.
Examples of the variety of marine life that Stuart has seen ‒ and photographed ‒ include mimic octopus, bobtail squid, simplex shrimp, crocodile snake eel, shaggy frogfish and brackish water frogfish, as well as thorny seahorses, snake blenny, electric torpedo rays and a varied array of rare nudibranch including Stiliger and Cerberilla affinis.
“Most recently an incredibly rarely seen longtail butterfly ray was found resting in the sand,” Stuart pointed out.
To promote knowledge and understanding of marine life in Kata Bay, Stuart in November 2017 launched the fully non-commercial ‘Kata Beach Shore Diving’ Facebook page to post photos of his wondrous discoveries.
His photographed sighting of the longtail butterfly ray was hailed as a very rare discovery, and very surprising among many very experienced divers to be discovered in underwater sands off Kata Beach.
The confirmed sighting of the ray also prompted many of the experienced divers to ask what measures were being taken to protect the marine life off Kata. The answer remains: none.
“Unfortunately all of this wonderful...
...marine life is in serious danger as every year hundreds of visiting sail and motorised boats drop anchor in Kata Bay, destroying the habitat of rare and important marine life,” Stuart explains.
“My fear is that if the practice of dropping anchor in Kata Bay does not stop then eventually this marine life will cease to inhabit the area and Kata bay will become barren of its rare marine life.”
Stuart is very aware of how Kata Bay is used for marine tourism, and understands how boats will still need to use parts of the bay.
“I sincerely believe that the way to protect Kata Bay’s rare marine life is to make it illegal to drop anchor and install dedicated mooring lines/points for visiting boats. After all they have them for the longtail boats,” he says.
“It should be noted that when an anchor is dropped it hits the seabed and then drags along the seabed until it eventually embeds in the sand. The destruction this causes is severe with countless animals and marine plants being destroyed.”
CORALS IN THE
SPOTLIGHT Admiral Adung Phan-iam, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Navy, was in Phuket only last week to officiate the launch of a project to repair and install mooring buoys to help protect coral reefs.
The official launch of the project took place at the Marine and Coastal Resources Research Center (Upper Andaman Sea) at Cape Panwa on Feb 20.
Adm Adung presided over the event alongside key dignitaries including Pinsak Suraswadi, Director-General of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR).
The initiative is in response to the royal mandate championed by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, explained an official report of the launch.
The initiative is part of the Chulabhorn 36 Underwater Park Project, which has been active since 1993 under the auspices of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and Princess Chulabhorn Walailak. The ongoing project, initiated on the occasion of His Majesty the King’s 36th birthday, aims to conserve, restore, and prevent the destruction of natural resources in the Andaman Sea region
The project aims to launch a concerted effort to preserve the delicate ecosystems of the Andaman Sea by the conservation and restoration of natural resources in the region. However, the project is focussed particularly on protecting coral reefs, not marine life born out of sandy seabeds, which much marine life develops.
Regardless, Adm Adung sai at the launch, “The overall goal of the initiative is to raise awareness and foster public participation in the protection of marine resources, ultimately ensuring that tourist attractions and dive sites, such as Racha Yai Island, remain pristine, beautiful, and safe for all visitors.
“By undertaking such proactive measures, Royal Thai
Navy Third Area Command and its partners are taking significant strides towards safeguarding the rich biodiversity and ecological balance of the Andaman Sea, marking a pivotal moment in the ongoing efforts to preserve our planet’s precious natural resources,” he added.
VITAL SAND “Kata beach is not simply just Kata reef, but it consists of large seagrass areas, algae areas, pink sponge finger areas and huge sand areas where so much important marine life is living,” Stuart countered.
“In addition to boats anchors, every year snorkelers ignore the signs and are seen regularly standing on the top of Kata reef resting.
“The damage this is doing to Kata reef is irreversible as coral can take hundreds of years to grow. Why is no one ever policing and enforcing the rule of no standing on the reef?” he posed.
“I believe that protecting Kata Bay is extremely important not only from an ecological perspective, but also for Thailand from the dive tourism revenue that can be gained and the jobs created from visiting divers who want to macro/muck dive in Thailand. The opportunity is huge,” Stuart pointed out.
“People never associate Thailand with macro diving but yet here it is at Kata.
Protect it as an investment for future dive tourism if not for ecological conservation reasons,” Stuart concluded.
For more information about the marine life to be found in Kata Bay, visit Kata Beach Shore Diving Facebook page, which Stuart launched with “the aim of highlighting the significant importance of the area by photographing its marine life in the hope that the Thai government may eventually see and protect it for the jewel that it is, similar to how they regard Maya bay and the Similan islands ‒ and make it a protected area”.