Sad, sad day today

Today is an extremely sad day. I found out today that a rare marine creature was killed last night/yesterday. For those who visit Edmunds Water Park in Washington, I am sorry to say there is one Giant Pacific Octopus you will no longer be seeing there. Those who have been to Edmunds know that it is essentially an underwater petting zoo. The animals there have gotten used to human activity due to scuba divers. The saddest part, the octopus was a female, and she was sitting on a clutch of eggs. Those who understand octopi behavior, know that she would not have left no matter the danger. She was essentially a sitting duck. And now that the mother is not there to protect the eggs, the eggs are basically free game to any scavengers that come along.

I can understand killing for survival eating, but the person who killed her did it for sport. This poor creature is not the first to be killed by him. He has a photo of a snake with a firework jammed down its throat on his Facebook. And also makes comment about how he had killed several rabbits for no greater purpose than to test the new scope on his gun. People like this make me disappointed in humanity.
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This is the person responsible, and you can see the poor creature in the bed of his truck.
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This guys name is Dylan Mayer, he lives in Maple Valley, Washington. I ask that anyone along the west coast spreads his name and photo around so that any dive shop who sees it can ban him from their shop. There are already several groups on Facebook committed to this purpose, but I felt that the Mer community needed to know that a marine friend had been killed.

Perhaps we can all band together and try to end the killing of Giant Pacific Octopi all together, they are becoming more and more rare to see. We need to fight this tragedy.

OMG!!! :jawdrop:WOW!!! That is so needless and mean and cruel.I wonder if he would like it if the shoe was on the other foot. I think not.

Authorities should absolutely be contacted. A water park is protected grounds and that species is protected as well i believe. The park itself needs to be contacted. the visual evidence needs to fall into the proper hands.

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:'( it's terrible what some people are capable of, it's this sort of behaviour that the world need without. did they take the eggs into captivity so that they hatch or have they been left alone?

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:(

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so potentially 100,000 octopi have died :( that's soooo sad :(

Close to tears here on the east coast. :(

Even though we call ourselves human, how can a person be called human when they do things so cruel an inhumain? To kill life needlessly without remorse. For people to be like this it saddens me to call myself human. I myself don't understand why this came to pass, but it sickens me to the core. I do not understand and most likely never will.

Why are people even allowed to hunt in that area?

Did you find this on Fb? It be great if there were links to report animal cruelty images. They usually are good about taking that stuff down.

Wow that's really lame.
And yea that's weird, if it was a park then why is anyone allowed to fish there? Maybe since it's not
a conservation area they can't do anything? Well it's their property so they can, I'm sure.

I hope he gets fined nasty or something. That thing isn't a fish, octopi are pretty sensitive and a mother
is pretty damn valuable too.

What a damn shame too. I'd kill to get to dive with an octopus! This guy obviously doesn't get it.

Hello all, I just stumbled on to this great forum while I was doing a Google search for Dylan Mayer. I am a diver in the Seattle area, I have dove where the GPO (giant pacific octopus) was killed. KOMO news is doing a short story about this Jacknob at 11 tonight. I feel the need to set a few things straight, the GPO was killed at a dive site called Cove 2, on Alki beach across from the Space needle. The area is a public access area, unfortunately fishing is allowed there, there are also about 75 to 150 divers there each weekend. It is a very popular dive site, very much like a underwater petting zoo. The GPO that Dylan killed was a male, not a female, so no eggs were lost thankfully. Every dive shop and dive boat in Washington state has banned this Asshat and his buddie diver. I was able to read his FB page before he ran scared and locked it down, he also removed all of his posts on a local dive shops page. Sorry for the odd introduction, but I though you all might like to know.
Thanks
Linedog.

No it was a female, http://www.raptureofthedeep.net/alkigpo
Here you can see all the eggs and what these men did. It was cruel and heartless. I'd like to see how they'd feel if they were treated like this

From this page;
"Several local divers including Bob B. and Mark S. confronted the captors and and began asking questions. The individuals clearly did not care that they had just taken a beautiful octopus from one of the most popular dive sites in the state of Washington, and even more disturbingly they admitted that this particular specimen was currently protecting her eggs. GPOs deposit approximately 50,000-100,000 eggs on the ceiling of their den and protect them without leaving for the 6 month gestation period. If a mother is taken, the eggs will not survive to hatch and an entire potential generation of future octopus are lost."

:(

I don't understand how on earth a guy like him was able to walk in like that and make off with the GPO - what about security?? Investigations are still going on, I hope? I want to see that murderer brought to justice!!!! :mad:

I don't understand why he would do that? I wish the other two would have struggled to get it away from him and back in the water..... I don't understand how someone can sit there and watch any creature writhe and die out of it's environment. I say that everytime I see people fishing and throwing fish along the shore to slowly die or even worse, descale and filet them( clean them) while they're still alive...
Are they doing somethig about it?
Even if he took the FB page down, it can be brought back ,FB can retrieve it and should!

Found his FB page, he took all the piccies down But the timeline piccie still shows him loading the GPO (poor octopus) in the back of his pick up.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/North...dylan.mayer.37

Only one thing, that octopus was dead anyway! She'd die after the eggs hatch.

The question is how long ago did she lay them? If she just laid them then the eggs are toast, but if there was maybe a month left before hatching, they might survive. This should be what divers should focus on, protecting those eggs! True, they can't stand guard 24 hours like mom could, but they can take steps to prevent predators from gaining access to the nest. It's a good chance to learn something here!

What he did was stupid, but not something that warrants the abuse that everyone wants to hurl at him.

That's just how the world is. Not everyone really cares or knows about certain things. It sucks that
it happened but at least maybe if this story blows up enough it can be an example to other

I sent this story idea to CNN, Fox News, and BBC news. I hope one of them will cover it.

@Capt Nemo - that is true. I wonder if there are any efforts being made to actually protect the eggs?
I don't think the focus should really be to blame the Dylan guy for anything, he may have not even known
what it is that he was doing, I think it's just important to get the message around so people actually realize
that octopi are more delicate and if you come across a female you certainly shouldn't kill it.
I don't think there will be much left if there wasn't already something put in place to protect the eggs. I'm sure
there are a lot of fish around that area and eggs probably look good to them.

@Kanti, unfortunately Dylan and his mate where aware that it was female and that she was protecting her eggs.

Welp, the story's hit the Seattle Times :

http://seattletimes.com/html/fieldno...uld_it_be.html

If you have a spare 2 hours you can read the thread from our local dive community, http://www.nwdiveclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19454
I am Linedog on that forum also, thank you for spreading the word. Our final goal is to establish no underwater take zones, the surface fishermen can carry on, but as far as divers are concerned, no hunting in established recreational dive sites. Once again, thank you for your time.
Linedog

Looks like msnbc also carried it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49663940

Reading on the linked forum, it appears he bent his butt and had to spend 8 hours in deco! At a nice $5-10K per ride! Awwwww!

And he had nothing left to kill the octo with as both he and his buddy lost their knives in the fight.

:lol:

There are just no words to describe my anger and frustration right now. Shoving fireworks into a snake's throat?! Shooting many rabbits to test a gun?! Destroying one of the most beautiful creatures of the deep?!?! Hunting and killing in that diving area shouldn't be allowed whatsoever. In fact, screw all those designated hunting ranges and shooting circuses! How can we call ourselves humans- plus bestowing many other "glorious" names- when some of us can do things that are so cruel and inhuman? He has no respect or a touch of sympathy for any living creature except for his rotten self. Sorry for my rant, but things like this can take such a hard toll on a person like me. I'm out. :mad:

Just an update, this whole event now has lawyers involved, so we all know what that means. People are clamming up, lawyers are looking to see who they can squeeze the most money out of and the thread has been locked. For your own safety and the safety of the pod, I would suggest that this thread be locked or at least let it die away.
Thanks,
Linedog.

o.o Is this the same guy? http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/...parks+outrage/ The name is a little different though, but that may be from misinformation.

Yeah it's the same guy, his mum has the right last name. I'm familiar with the photos

:< Ohh I see. That's unfortunate. I was actually on yahoo a few minutes ago and happened to see it, then I remembered there was a thread talking about something like this here.

As a Washingtonian - I'm really sad!

This is terrible. He should get a hefty fine. Isn't hunting illegal in Marine protected areas?

Edit: I see that this is not an MPA... Well I hope it becomes one, before any other marine life is killed and extracted from the sea for an "art project".

I was reading just the other day that he and his family and getting threats on there lives and he has been banned from dive shops all over the place for what he has done.

Some people should have never been born.

Thats messed up.this happens way too often everywhere. Im glad it has been reported.

I think he his just an unresponsible teenager. How many teen guys do you know that care about protected animals? Not very many. What he did was wrong because it was a protected spieces. But I don't think he should go to prison. He should be slapped with a fine. I don't have anything against people hunting.... as long as the animals are not dieing out.

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Is he really a teenager? I thought he was an adult, dang... :(