The scene of dozens of starfish being lined up on the sand to death rings bells alerting tourists that they should stop catching this marine animal to take pictures.
On the afternoon of April 2, a female tourist from Hanoi caught a series of dry starfish in the fishing village of Rach Vem (Ganh Dau, Phu Quoc). She took a photo, then shared it on the travel group on Facebook. The post quickly attracts thousands of likes, comments and shares. Most of the comments expressed outrage and condemned the act of catching starfish in Phu Quoc to take pictures of many tourists.
The owner of the photo shared that her family went to Rach Vem to visit because they wanted the children to admire the starfish in the wild. When she arrived here, she was directed by the taxi driver to an area with many heart-shaped starfish to take pictures. Here, she saw many starfish lined up on the shore, where the waves did not hit. And these starfish curved hard and blackened.
I was extremely frustrated when seeing this scene. Someone wanted to have beautiful pictures of red starfish putting them up here and leaving them to dry up. My family tried giving two starfish into the water but it was probably late.
The tourist.
She hopes that the local authorities and tourists should warn visitors not to disturb the starfish or any other marine life.
The photo was then shared continuously on other travel groups, attracting thousands of people.
In fact, the problem of catching starfish in Phu Quoc to take pictures has become the “trend” of a part of tourists for years. If you search for the keyword “Rach Vem” on social networks, you will see hundreds, even thousands of pictures of starfish. Even the top results for this place are full of starfish arranged ashore with the person sitting next to it.
The act of catching starfish on shore is extremely dangerous for this creature. Many people have a misconception that marine creatures will still live if removed from the water, as long as the time is less than 5 minutes.
However, most marine life, including starfish, needs breathing to live. And they can only breathe underwater. Starfish breathe through the legs of their tubes and papillae (tiny marks on their bodies). In short, their breathing parts are located all over the body. Most starfish can only hold their breath for less than 30 seconds.
Although catching starfish in Phu Quoc is the issue that has been shared by the Vietnamese online community many times, in fact, no authority in Rach Vem has officially managed this.