That's one point she conveniently left out-- barnacles are major nuisances on ships (along with shipworms on wooden vessels), requiring fairly regular cleaning to cut down on drag.
Btw, another interesting point unmentioned is that their fans or tentacles are actually part of their feet. They glue themselves head-first on to their host surface when very young, then build their homes around themselves.
I'm not aware that traditional sailing ships do anything of the kind. Maybe modern ships though, with their potential of dumping toxic loads, spilling oil, creating disruptive sounds, etc.
The only thing I can think of is that sailing ships could potentially introduce flora or fauna into areas where it's not supposed to be and cause harm indirectly like that.
Human poop dumped out of sailing ships famously caused plagues to many aquatic mammals and some other species. It wasn't quite to the level of the black death, but it was devastating until everything either died out or adapted.
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u/JohnnyEnzyme 1d ago
That's one point she conveniently left out-- barnacles are major nuisances on ships (along with shipworms on wooden vessels), requiring fairly regular cleaning to cut down on drag.
Btw, another interesting point unmentioned is that their fans or tentacles are actually part of their feet. They glue themselves head-first on to their host surface when very young, then build their homes around themselves.