This really upset me

[Andy Sager]

So let's not worry about adding additional regulations.

How about educating the hobbyist and get everyone on board with only buying captive bred species.

This would then force even more effort to be put into finding ways to accomplish this as the consumer can drive change more than anyone. Money talks.

I am very aware of many of the issues surrounding the destruction of oceans.

But when we look at the saltwater hobby, it's easy enough to pass laws which would protect wild caught fish. Making it illegal to sell wild caught would certainly help don't you think?

Why would people who love these fish and reefs want to do something that will hurt the things they love. As hobbyist we can make a huge difference in how the fish are sold.

While your points are well intended, they are not truly going to change the attitudes and habits of the rest of the world.
As for not keeping wild caught fish, this poses an even bigger danger to them. How you might ask? By not being able to monitor the capture and sale of these fish, there could very easily be losses of entire fish stocks without anyone noticing. Now I'm not saying that the hobby is good reason to prevent this but just as wild animals are kept in zoos to make people aware of their existence, the hobby can also do the same thing.
Years ago I attended a symposium led by the director of the Rosensteil school of marine sciences which is a part of the University of Miami in FL. We were told that because of the volume of eggs that many pelagic and non benthic fish produce per spawn, that if only 20% of the world's reefs were protected from human activity of all kinds, the fish produced from those reefs could supply the other 80% of the reefs around the world. That means that there are an awful lot of fish coming from a single pair of fish. And to back that up, take a single pair of Atlantic Queen Angelfish. An average spawn is between 25 -75 thousand eggs per spawn and close to 10 million eggs per spawning cycle. Butterfly fish have an average 100-300 thousand eggs per spawn. Do you really think it's the hobby causing a decline in the fish populations?

Here's another example: Instant Ocean, I believe, set up a breeder in the Florida Keys to study the effectiveness ( cost and space) of tank breeding
French Angelfish. In doing so, a hybrid French/ Black Angelfish was created. (It had the square tail of a Black Angel but the full yellow border of the tail of the Juv. French Angel.) The end result was that because they produced so many eggs per spawn, not enough land could be procured to effectively tank rear these fish in the U.S.

Another example: Back in the 1970s? or early 80s, TFH magazine had an article about the Imperator Angel and it found that a single male had a territory of 1/4 of a square mile and kept a female in each corner and would spawn with each one over the course of the week they were studied. That's just 5 fish of a specie that is not considered to be in danger of overfishing as of today.

But to better show this, take a look at the species of marine aquarium fish that are listed on the IUCN red list. I fully support the non keeping of fish that are on that list as endangered or even just threatened unless as tank raised specimens but there just aren't that many that would be on the list.

You can argue ( or discuss ) this until you are blue in the face but the aquarium trade truly is not the major cause of the decline of the oceans or many of the fish stocks now in trouble. It's human interference and over use that is. There are many groups of people that have pilfered the oceans for decades for food, fun and profit and that is for more than just the hobby. When trawlers net thousands of sardines or herring or krill out of the system so that there aren't any for the fish to feed on, and then those fish die off from malnutrition before becoming food for fish or animals higher up in the chain, how did the hobby have anything to do with that? That's a reality that is happening today.
Pacific Salmon have made comebacks in some areas where dams for electrical power, that were blocking their natural spawning areas, were removed proving that it was the dam that was the problem.
Fish stocks in the Gulf of Mexico on the FL side were on the decline for years and rebounded within 1 year and exponentially rebounded over 5 years only once the Commercial net ban became a Florida constitutional law. The hobby wasn't involved in that either except that some fish put forth into the hobby were collected by these commercial nets. I won't tell you how I know this is true.

The biggest abuse and most fishes on the IUCN redlist are freshwater fishes and the main cause is mainly habitat destruction. Once again, the hobby had nothing to do with that.

And I could go on with more examples. So let's get the facts straight for this discussion so it doesn't become one of passionate opinion vs reality facts.

 

[SeanMonster]

Going for it man, start the movement.

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I believe in my post that I stated I frequent a lfs that supports the views of sustainability. Change starts locally. Can't change the world, just your little piece of it. So I guess I have started the movement.

 

[philipraposo198]

While your points are well intended, they are not truly going to change the attitudes and habits of the rest of the world.
As for not keeping wild caught fish, this poses an even bigger danger to them. How you might ask? By not being able to monitor the capture and sale of these fish, there could very easily be losses of entire fish stocks without anyone noticing. Now I'm not saying that the hobby is good reason to prevent this but just as wild animals are kept in zoos to make people aware of their existence, the hobby can also do the same thing.
Years ago I attended a symposium led by the director of the Rosensteil school of marine sciences which is a part of the University of Miami in FL. We were told that because of the volume of eggs that many pelagic and non benthic fish produce per spawn, that if only 20% of the world's reefs were protected from human activity of all kinds, the fish produced from those reefs could supply the other 80% of the reefs around the world. That means that there are an awful lot of fish coming from a single pair of fish. And to back that up, take a single pair of Atlantic Queen Angelfish. An average spawn is between 25 -75 thousand eggs per spawn and close to 10 million eggs per spawning cycle. Butterfly fish have an average 100-300 thousand eggs per spawn. Do you really think it's the hobby causing a decline in the fish populations?

Here's another example: Instant Ocean, I believe, set up a breeder in the Florida Keys to study the effectiveness ( cost and space) of tank breeding
French Angelfish. In doing so, a hybrid French/ Black Angelfish was created. (It had the square tail of a Black Angel but the full yellow border of the tail of the Juv. French Angel.) The end result was that because they produced so many eggs per spawn, not enough land could be procured to effectively tank rear these fish in the U.S.

Another example: Back in the 1970s? or early 80s, TFH magazine had an article about the Imperator Angel and it found that a single male had a territory of 1/4 of a square mile and kept a female in each corner and would spawn with each one over the course of the week they were studied. That's just 5 fish of a specie that is not considered to be in danger of overfishing as of today.

But to better show this, take a look at the species of marine aquarium fish that are listed on the IUCN red list. I fully support the non keeping of fish that are on that list as endangered or even just threatened unless as tank raised specimens but there just aren't that many that would be on the list.

You can argue ( or discuss ) this until you are blue in the face but the aquarium trade truly is not the major cause of the decline of the oceans or many of the fish stocks now in trouble. It's human interference and over use that is. There are many groups of people that have pilfered the oceans for decades for food, fun and profit and that is for more than just the hobby. When trawlers net thousands of sardines or herring or krill out of the system so that there aren't any for the fish to feed on, and then those fish die off from malnutrition before becoming food for fish or animals higher up in the chain, how did the hobby have anything to do with that? That's a reality that is happening today.
Pacific Salmon have made comebacks in some areas where dams for electrical power, that were blocking their natural spawning areas, were removed proving that it was the dam that was the problem.
Fish stocks in the Gulf of Mexico on the FL side were on the decline for years and rebounded within 1 year and exponentially rebounded over 5 years only once the Commercial net ban became a Florida constitutional law. The hobby wasn't involved in that either except that some fish put forth into the hobby were collected by these commercial nets. I won't tell you how I know this is true.

The biggest abuse and most fishes on the IUCN redlist are freshwater fishes and the main cause is mainly habitat destruction. Once again, the hobby had nothing to do with that.

And I could go on with more examples. So let's get the facts straight for this discussion so it doesn't become one of passionate opinion vs reality facts.

Great post and I agree with all of it.

I don't believe that the hobby is a major contributor to the destruction of reefs and oceans. I simply feel that we have an opportunity to make a small impact that can help. We drive the hobby and therefore we can demand for better methods of collection and care for the livestock.

It's bothers me knowing that to get one fish home means many die in the process. The losses are just far to great due to poor collection practices.

 

[Dallascowboys16]

The impact that saltwater fish collection for the hobby creates is so small that it is almost irrelevant when talking about overall decline in health of our oceans. I point to ocean acidification and extreme overfishing. I am all for buying sustainably sourced fish from fisheries with a good track record, but am totally against outlawing wild collection of abundant tropical species. In Hawaii, measures have been taken to protect their threatened species from collection and that is fine. Species that are abundant though are still fair game for collection as they should be. That is the best of both worlds in my opinion. On the freshwater side, collection of wild fish often actually helps the habitat of the animals. In many of the places where freshwater fish are collected, there are not a lot of options when it comes to feeding your family. Fish collecting gives many people a way to put food on the table and often keeps them away from far more destructive livelihoods like slash and burn agriculture and logging. Also, when the community relies on the health of the ecosystem in order to be successful, they are far more likely to help protect the fish and waters that they live in. I used to be staunchly opposed to all wild collection a few years ago, but I have done some research and now support it. There are many sides to the issue of wild collection of organisms and I recommend that everyone here form their own educated opinion on it.

 

[jarrod0987]

I just wanted to show you the Cyanide and Blasting are still happening even though distributors insist they are not. I also have, in the past, post articles about the bleaching of the coral reef.

 

[Stacey W.]

Well.. of I were to hop on a soap box and cry out??plastics.. plastics, micro beads, all the soda bottles comprising the many floating trash islands out there?? While I do not fully agree with the means in which sw fish are procured for the the hobby. I can appreciate the efforts recycled back into the hobby from said members. It's not pretty but it certainly ain't ugly.. so oooo many problems before fish gathering my friend

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Unfortunately there aren't really any trash islands anymore because it's all breaking down. Which is even scarier.

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[jarrod0987]

Unfortunately there aren't really any trash islands anymore because it's all breaking down. Which is even scarier.

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I remember seeing a show on Discovery about that issue. A sample from the most remote part of the ocean had been taken and 6-10 bits of plastic were present. That was years ago. I saw an inventor that made this floating trash can thing. I don't understand how it worked but you drop it in the ocean and the water starts to fall in like a waterfall. It had a strainer to catch the trash and the water went back out the bottom. I saw it on the show. It was cool. Wish I knew how it worked. I don't think it had any power or anything. Had to do with the shape.

 

[Stacey W.]

I remember seeing a show on Discovery about that issue. A sample from the most remote part of the ocean had been taken and 6-10 bits of plastic were present. That was years ago. I saw an inventor that made this floating trash can thing. I don't understand how it worked but you drop it in the ocean and the water starts to fall in like a waterfall. It had a strainer to catch the trash and the water went back out the bottom. I saw it on the show. It was cool. Wish I knew how it worked. I don't think it had any power or anything. Had to do with the shape.

The net showed how many parts per million (water to plastic). It may be the same show I watched. They sailed for 100's of miles trying to find these so called "trash islands" and did not find them. But their findings proved worse than they thought.

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[Andy Sager]

It's bothers me knowing that to get one fish home means many die in the process. The losses are just far to great due to poor collection practices.

This was a big issue back in the 80s and there were people, Steve Robinson for one, who put together programs to retrain collectors in areas such as the Philippines to use nets for collecting instead of cyanide. This was highly publicized in magazines such as FAMA & TFH. Back then, the fish coming from areas such as Indonesia and Red Sea and Australia were known to be net collected but the prices for those fish were higher and so the demand for those fish was less. If things have changed, then I can only assume that it's because of our unwillingness to support those companies not using Cyanide
and charging more to keep their divers from starving.
But countries have been paying the price for this illegal practice as well. Case in point, back then, a Philippino diver only had to go out a short distance to the reef to collect their fish. At the last time I spoke with one of my Philippino fish suppliers, I was told that the collectors now have to go as far as a 7 day boat trip just to get to the collecting grounds because the local reefs had been destroyed by not just the drugging but also dynamite fishing for food fish. So there is not a lot of reward in that country for fish collectors anymore I assume.
I recently saw an article by Nat Geo stating that 90% of the marine fish in the hobby are cyanide caught. I have to take pause and question that amount as I know there are many areas where net collecting is still done. Having had experience in the fish trade myself, I can safely say that if 90% of the fish in the hobby were cyanide caught, there wouldn't be too many fish available to the trade to sell. So I think there needs to be more fact checking for that article.

 

[Sniperhank]

This was a topic heavily discussed at MACNA. I just finished watching this one:

 

[Caliban07]

Trying to educate people to stop buying wild caught fish is an admirable thought and one that we would probably all want to see. Especially those on the red list Andy mentioned but unfortunately it's kind of like trying to educate people to be more green by switching lights off, recycling and buying electric cars without tackling the effects agricultural emissions has on our environment.

For every pound of fish caught, 5 pounds of unintended marine species are captured and discarded as by-kill.

If I had a choice though, I would buy captive bred over wild caught every time and I think if you put the question to most people they would say the same thing right surely? People know that what we are doing is wrong, we just make it too easy to ignore.

 

[jarrod0987]

The Speaker in this video still thinks sustainable wild caught is possible and something that should be done. I agree with her. It was never my intention to tell people we should not buy wild caught fish. The speaker just wants to show people what is really happening and wished to make the trade more sustainable and discontinue the use of bad practices. She says a Cn test is being worked on so we can know of a fish was collected by Cn. Also they had a great graphic that showed the prices everyone in the supply chain gets for the various types of fish etc. The people doing the catching don't have the price they need to use better practices. She said in one country, the store posts the price for vegetables the farmer got paid along with the price your getting charged. I think that is a cool idea too. Put's pressure on the middle men to be more generous and the retailers to be less greedy. I also understand buying captive bred. It's amazing to me people are breeding tangs now. I especially like the idea of captive bred corals. It is so easy after all.

 

[Winter-huntsman]

I'm doing my part to protect the reefs. I'm buying fish from certified breeders, and I only buy corals that have been fragged/ aquacultured. There may not be a lot of little fish species that can be breed easily but I'm glad the tangs are becoming easier to breed since they seem so popular.

 

[Andy Sager]

This was a topic heavily discussed at MACNA. I just finished watching this one:

This was actually something I was complaining about way back when. We had a feeling, just a feeling mind you, that human activity in the keys was the cause of the reef destruction and water flow from the land was a major cause of the decline of the urchin population as well as desalination of the bays. It sounds like there is now proof we were right. Once again, more proof that it's not the fish hobby but the people on Earth destroying it.

Little tid bit of nostalgia for me in this video, Ken Nedemeyer was one of my keys fish suppliers before he became involved with the coral projects but I first knew Ken from when he was the first mate on a fishing boat I used to fish on back in the 1960s. If anyone ever sees him at one of these conventions, ask him about the Ken-Kay and capt. Ken Doubles. ( I think I may even have a picture of him on an old super 8 MM movie my Dad made. )

 

[Sniperhank]

Quite interesting. The stuff from MACNA was great this year, to include Tony Gil's especially.