It is not every day that a cornetfish, or any fish for that matter, makes the headlines of Times of Malta. The species is a newish kid on the block. Cornetfish moved into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal some years ago and are now not uncommonly seen by Maltese snorkelers and divers, especially during the winter months.

They, and any fish for that matter, are also not uncommonly killed on sight. Which is how two largish cornetfish found themselves in the news last Wednesday. Having entertained divers in Ċirkewwa for many days, they were apparently harpooned and left to rot at the bottom of the sea.

I wish I could say I was surprised. I doubt there’s a single spot in Malta where a fish larger than an anchovy lasts more than a couple of weeks. If it can be harpooned or caught by any other means, it will be. No matter if Ċirkewwa happens to be a ‘voluntary marine reserve’, it seems the subscribers and dissenters are evenly balanced and unevenly armed.

That’s the nasty bit. The good news on this occasion was the long list of comments by readers who for the best part took online umbrage at how the cornetfish were treated. It may be that the early spring has brought out the optimist in me, but that popular reaction looks like a glimmer of hope.

My childhood summers were spent in typical Maltese fashion, pottering about at the seaside with a fishing rod and a hand net and snorkelling in shallow water on the lookout for starfish, shells, and such. The first activity fell by the wayside soon enough, the second persisted and became something of a benign compulsion.

Sometime in the mid-1990s I started to keep records of what I saw. The first years were largely a hit and miss affair. There were very few field-guide books on the market at the time, and the internet as we know it didn’t exist.

The one useful local book was the 1993 Progress Press edition of Guido Lanfranco’s The Fish Around Malta (first published in 1958 as A Complete Guide to the Fishes of Malta). Like Lanfranco’s many other offerings, it was based on thorough research and a dogged attention to the scientific method. It also included drawings that I could use to identify some of the commoner types of fish.

Happily, things are now different. A number of good books have appeared (not in English though), and the internet offers up a mass of information and visuals produced by amateur naturalists as well as professional scientists.

The basic equipment too is increasingly affordable. Twenty years ago an underwater camera could be classified as sunken treasure; now, a decent one costs little more than a mobile phone.

The upshot is that it has become possible for hobbyists like myself to spend a leisurely couple of hours snorkelling and taking photos, and then to go home and put a name and a story to a good chunk of the day’s sightings. These days I also like to share my photos with friends of both the real and the Facebook types.

All of which is relevant, since nature only becomes attractive and worth preserving inasmuch as it can be converted into cultural knowledge and objects (notes, photos, Facebook likes, and so on) which can be circulated within social circles. Believers in ‘biophilia’ (the theory that holds that humans have an innate – as in genetically programmed – desire to engage with nature) will kill me for this, but never mind.

Take birds. Their conversion into cultural objects has been going on for millennia and has involved hunters and artists among others. Fifty years ago, Times of Malta could report that a hunter had shot a Short-toed Eagle and that the event was an auspicious one on account of the bird’s rarity and value as a trophy.

That was before the natural history societies (‘study and conservation’, their taglines went) came along and suggested that birds might usefully be converted into objects other than stuffed trophies. The rest is as contentious as it is well known but the point is that no newspaper today would dream of congratulating someone for shooting an eagle.

For some reason, fish haven’t fared so well. So far, the only range of cultural objects they’ve been converted into is of the edible kind. Aquariums and goldfish ponds notwithstanding, there is next to no appreciation of wild fish as beautiful animals that are worth observing and preserving.

I find it a shame that we cannot yet appreciate fish and marine creatures for their beauty and value

I do remember coming across, several years ago, a Marine Conservation Society. If my memory serves me well, it was based in Sliema and run by a professional diver. But it never really took off; nor did it manage to do much for marine conservation.

In a sense, the situation today isn’t that much better. We do have what are called ‘marine conservation areas’ but their existence is limited to paper. In spite of all the hype about top diving spots and such, we don’t have a single marine reserve that is properly managed. Habitat loss, trammel nets (the dreaded ‘pariti’), and an indiscriminate obsession with shore and spear fishing continue to decimate what little fish and marine life there may be left.

In the case of birds, the original idea that they might be worth preserving came from the outside. It was inspired by British conservation organisations and locally peddled largely through English-language newspapers. One of the arguments was (and still is, though the point is hotly debated) that lawless hunting harms tourism.

That logic has its limitations. I find it depressing that the only reason people can find for not killing two beautiful cornetfish is that diving tourists will have two less things to enjoy, and that the loss might harm the economy.

It’s that time of year when many inshore fish species change into beautiful colours and attempt to breed. In some cases (notably that of wrasses, ‘tird’ in Maltese), it is possible to observe the males defending their territories and actually building nests made of fine algae. One could spend hours watching them do so. (Most wrasses are smaller than anchovies, which helps.)

I find it a shame that we cannot yet appreciate fish and marine creatures for their beauty and value. They’re attributes that can easily be converted into cultural objects that are as enriching as the most artistic photo of a swooping Short-toed Eagle.

mafalzon@hotmail.com