Sad day for Blue Heron Bridge

[Scuba_Jenny]

There was no need to collect from that site unless you are cheap and lazy.

Exactly

 

[Wookie]

Yeah, but it's still too small of a site though. Off the coast of Tampa I see hundreds of jawfish, blennies, etc. during my dives. Our shelf is huge. Nearly 100 miles out all within recreational depths. There was no need to collect from that site unless you are cheap and lazy.

Yes. You also have a fantastic ICW that holds a ton of little stuff, and is easy to get to twice a day. I see pike blennies in seagrass beds all over the Caribbean. I see frogfish everywhere. They had no reason to go to BHB unless you need a fast cheap score.

 

[nolatom]

Frank, as a very occasional BHB diver (most recently two weeks ago), I appreciate your knowledge and insight about this.

It seems Moody Gardens is getting hammered on their Facebook site comments, with little response from the aquarium aside from a tone-deaf vanilla non-response about their breeding program. What might help is MG telling us who the collectors were, and what action MG took, or will take, against them. Are collectors licensed by anyone?

Plus what if any remediation is possible, or planned, or under consideration.

The biology of all this I know nothing about. Hell, I have a hard enough time determining when high tide is, and not leaving any equipment behind at the beach or shower area. But I do understand why everyone is so torqued off.

 

[time2sail]

They had no reason to go to BHB unless you need a fast cheap score.

Most of America is driven by a simple formula (time=$).

So sad, but it sounds like a lot has already been accomplished to protect one of my favorite dive sites and a lot more is in the works. This is one cause that is definitely worth the time to support. As mentioned above, Jim has a started a great petition, please take a look if you haven't already.

Sign the Petition

 

[Damselfish]

For anyone who has aquarium fish or parrots or any domesticated wild animal, someone caught it and in the case of mammals, probably killed the mother to do it.

Not true of parrots - they are captive bred all over the world and import/export of wild caught birds is mostly illegal, except for very specific cases. Even import/export of captive bred birds is difficult. Not to say there are not problems or abuses, but the whole thing has been highly regulated for 20-25 years. Wild parrots generally don't even make good pets, and "domesticated wild animal" is sort of an oxymoron. (Some don't technically consider parrots to be domesticated.)

 

[Wookie]

Not true of parrots - they are captive bred all over the world and import/export of wild caught birds is mostly illegal, except for very specific cases. Even import/export of captive bred birds is difficult. Not to say there are not problems or abuses, but the whole thing has been highly regulated for 20-25 years. Wild parrots generally don't even make good pets, and "domesticated wild animal" is sort of an oxymoron. (Some don't technically consider parrots to be domesticated.)

Again, the point is not that anyone has a domesticated parrot now, or maybe they do, it's that the ancestors of today's parrots were collected by someone. The question was "What is a professional collector?" It's a person who collects a wild animal for whatever reason, biology, captive breeding, or aquarium trade.

 

[dmaziuk]

But I am not sure why the outrage - these folks are doing it completely legally - if you don't agree with the process - go to the state or the legislators...

Outrage is over what's been known by various names that all boil down to "greed is stupid". Google for tragedy of the commons sometime. When you strain a resource past its breaking point, one or two things happen: the resource dies, and/or the best legislators money can buy pass the law that makes things worse for everybody.

A professional dealing with a shared resource should know that.

 

[tursiops]

A professional dealing with a shared resource should know that.

Perhaps, but the issue here is the professional did not care. Their bad.

 

[dmaziuk]

"Not caring" requires understanding the error of your ways. You're ascribing malice to that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

 

[kelemvor]

"Not caring" requires understanding the error of your ways. You're ascribing malice to that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I wonder who does this sort of collection. Is it just some fisherman they hire to catch live specimens or is he some kind of scientist or something in between?