Posted by corry coyea on December 21, 1999 at 17:02:13:
In Reply to: Re: Diver charged with theft! posted by Henry on December 14, 1999 at 18:14:09:
: : : Saw an article in the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel on 12/13/99.
: : : An Illinois man was charged with criminal damage to property for allegedly stealing a porthole valued at over $1000.00 from the shipwreck ROSINCO. When a conservation warden questioned the diver on October 28, 1998 at Northpoint Marina in Winthrop Harbor, Ill., the diver stated he and another person had just retunred from diving the ROSINCO. The diver showed the warden the porthole, but said he had taken it more than 10 years ago. He later admitted that he had just taken the piece off the wreck, according to the crminal complaint. The diver is scheduled to appear in Kenosha County Circuit Court on January 18.
: : : Any opinions out there???
: : It's people like him that give sport diving a bad name.
: : It's also the reason that places like Ontario are facing
: : Restrictions and Licensing on Wreck Diving. I getting
: : tired of being penalized for other peoples actions.
: : This has got to stop or none of us will be diving wrecks
: : Anymore!!
: Well, yes it's guys like this that spoil wreck diving for others, but I think the proposed restrictions in Ontario are more a response to the threat from professional salvors than to recreational divers with sticky fingers. Ontario's purpose in their legislation is to protect the very historically signigicant wrecks Hamilton and Scourge and future discoveries of similarly significant wrecks. Unfortunately, the way Ontario's legislation is worded, it could potentially restrict access to less significant wreck sites but this is not the intended purpose of the law. Some loud voices in the salvage community are trying to scare recreational divers into believing that the average diver is the target of this law. The Illinois diver mentioned in the original post has a well known history of raping wrecks which is likely why the police showed any interest in his diving activity, especially since he was diving at midnight.
** i live in ontario, and i work in a local dive shop, of all the people i know who dive, the only people that steal artifacts off of shipwrecks are members of s.o.s. (save ontario shipwrecks), they say they are preserving the artifacts, yet when you go to there houses, they have the artifacts in boxes in their attics, and garages. i believe that they should be in a museum so people can see them on display, not packed in boxes so no one sees them.