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 World Open Water Swimming Association