regulating aquarium fish trade

[merxlin]

I saw this in the Maui news:

Bill would regulate aquarium fish harvest

It sounds like a good thing. As an annual visitor, I hope whatever is needed is enacted to protect the reefs and the fish that live there. Do you think this will be able to be enforced?

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

"The bill would give Maui island animal control officers the authority to ensure that aquarium fish essentially are put on legal par with other pets, such as dogs and cats."

Well there is your enforcement branch; ever heard of them enforcing anything?

 

[rgbmatt]

Yep, this is basically CORA for aquariums.

First off, most of the article is completely false, especially the stuff about 99% of fish dying and reef fish having declined by 59%. The activists quoted are not making true statements, and as the writer mentions he didn't get a hold of DLNR to verify any of it.

When you look at the fine print, it makes it impossible for anyone to keep fish as a pet - basically any aquarium owner on Maui will now be a criminal.

In fact, many of the "industry practices" that the bill wants to ban are done with the fishes' health in mind. So, banning them would actually be worse for the fish and make humane treatment very difficult.

What's happening is that there is a small group of extremists that's apparently on a personal vendetta against saltwater aquariums. This bill is a carefully targeted attempt to put the two aquarium companies on Maui out of business.

The whole thing is crazy - somehow taking a fish and keeping it alive for people to enjoy and learn about the ocean is "cruelty to animals", while taking the same fish, hooking it in the mouth, killing it, and eating it or using it for bait is not? Makes no sense.

 

[merxlin]

I used to be involved in the aquarium trade (many years ago). Specifically I build artificial reef systems, and dealt in saltwater fish. I can tell you that the mortality rates are probably closer to the "extremists" numbers than the hobby itself will publish.

The whole thing is crazy - somehow taking a fish and keeping it alive for people to enjoy and learn about the ocean is "cruelty to animals", while taking the same fish, hooking it in the mouth, killing it, and eating it or using it for bait is not? Makes no sense.

There is a HUGE difference between hook and eat, and the quantities taken that way, versus the quantities of fish taken for the aquarium trade. Also, the vast majority of aquarium fish are not used as food or as bait. I am not against fish keeping, but am against it being unregulated. I got out of the hobby once I realized what the damage to the entire marine environment was at that time (cyanide was used as a capture method on many reefs).

The fact is that unregulated takes are depleting the native reef fish populations. Maybe this is not that best step to prevent that. I only had the newspaper article to go by. But I think that something has to be done before the reefs suffer irreversible damage. What would your suggestion be rgb?

 

[scubadada]

This topic has come up before, http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii-ohana/293285-aquarium-trade-hawaii.html, some of the same combatants.

Good diving, Craig

 

[friscuba]

I've gotta say, I'm a bit on the fence on this one. I've read the Undercurrent article that has spurred several negative comments by divers on Hawaii's reefs... and I disagree with several points in it. It mirrors other articles written by the same person you can find on the web.

Anyways, since the first article in Undercurrent occurred, I've had 3 or 4 inquiries from mainland customers about how bad it's getting here... for me, I can't agree it's getting bad... we've seen more oddballs the last 2 years than my first 8 years here and fish populations seem great off Kona in comparison to earlier in my observations (my fish counter friends say it's the case in their experience too). I think it (the undercurrent article) could have at least some negative impact on some people's decision to visit here.

I sometimes wonder if one person or organization is going well out of their way to make mountains out of molehills, or at least embellishing the numbers, it would be nice to see specific sources. From the linked article there was the quote "DLNR officials were told in meetings this year that the number of fish captured is greatly underreported, by as much as 10 times", it would be nice to see a source and find out if that statement could be confirmed. By the way, from the article, do the math... 12K reef fish collected off Maui over the course of a year = less than 40 fish a day, even if it was 10X underreported (still like to see that proved) that'd still take a long time to wipe out Maui's fish stocks even if they didn't breed and replenish on their own.

I'm all for proper management, maybe even going as far as eliminating the taking of fish stocks to see if they can recover to the level supposedly seen decades past (nobody did base studies in those days so it's tough to say if it's worse now), but somehow I wonder if the collectors aren't getting a bit more blame for any decline in Hawaii's reefs than they deserve.