Data: Wrong; Sustainability: Don't care; Robert Wintner: Aquarium trade should stop!

[naesco]

Nicely put Ian. Thank you.

[lockrookie]

I dunno I have had my cleaner wrasse for 3 years now with no issues and 6 months of that it lived in my hang on back overflow box I thought it to be long gone and only found it when I moved my tank to place my 180 in its new home. Still going strong and happy to clean me from time to time.

I do understand the impact we can have from the hobby but we also provide positive impacts as well. As Tim said if someone hadn't tried to keeps sps we wouldn't know how to now. If the cave man hadn't discovered fire..... How would we roast our marshmallows .. And lastly I doubt we are solely to blame... Why are they not going after the ppl whom eat the fish and banning them from baking their corpses in their outdoor markets just to get tossed when they expire. As hobbyists we strive to have them survive. It upsets me when I lose a pal. All in all yes some fish I won't purchase like a morish idol or anything that has the terms rare attached to it for my own conscience.

Also I won't purchase genetically modified fish or dyed fish.. Will my refusal to buy these things stop them from being sold.... Not at all

[TimT]

Naesco I don't think you understood what I was saying.

Why do you think my saying

Originally Posted by timt

In general Cleaner Wrasses from Hawaii and the South Pacific do fine while their Indo-Pacific counterparts don't have a chance.

is telling people to buy cyanided cleaner wrasses???? It is clearly the opposite as the cyanided ones don't have a chance while the Hawaiian and South Pacific ones do. Most people won't buy a fish they know doesn't have a chance.

Originally Posted by naesco

When they are imported they than die in our tanks.

There are a lot of other reasons why fish die in aquariums than not being suitable for captivity.

Originally Posted by naesco

Considering the good work they do in the sea IMO we should not be importing them if they can't survive whether it is cyanide, shipping or the nature of the fish.

Agreed that they perform a valuable function in the sea. I am aware of the study on what happens when cleaner wrasses were removed from an area. However, fish do naturally migrate to areas where there is less density of conspecifics. The populations do recover over time if the reef has not been poisoned.

Originally Posted by naesco

(BTW I do not agree with your comment that it has nothing to do with the fish).

That's fine as this is western society and people are free to express differing opinions. My opinion is based on handling thousands of cleaner wrasses over a 14 year period from a variety of different exporters and geographical regions. What is your opinion based on?

I have personally seen the mortality rates of cleaner wrasses from Philippines and Indonesia. I have also seen the markedly lower mortality rates and better long term survivability of South Pacific and Hawaiian cleaner wrasses. Obviously there are other factors at play than a supposed unsuitability to captivity.

Cheers,
Tim

[Dearth]

The sad reality is we humans are natures biggest threat and have and will cause the mass extinction of many species no matter how hard we try to conservate them.

I am a new comer to the SW world and in the year I've been in it many things have been changed in the hobby some for the better some for the worse the fact remains we are an insatiable species wanting to collect and showcase rare and unusual species. Personally I cannot see spending huge money on a fish that may or may not live long and then the constant worry of the what ifs.

I am all for captive bred fish and coral but unlike fresh water species SW FIsh and coral tend to be much more fickle and captive breeding of many species of SW fish is a crap shoot at best hence the wild capture plus the unscrupulous people are many and their appetite is huge.

It's unlikely we will see the trend change for many yrs if ever but one way to help is to promote captive bred fish and coral over wild caught stock. Another way is tighter regulation of stores that sell SW live stock but in both cases it takes cooperation and willingness to change and that takes money and educating the masses correctly not by shock and awe as both sides of the debate love to do creating deep and often misleading information.

[TimT]

Well said Ian.

There is another side of the equation that Wintner is missing.

Originally Posted by IanWR

Wintner is saying that unlike fishing for food, fishing for aquaria is a luxury that is not needed. I think we could agree on the point that aquaria are luxuries, if not on the morality of luxury.

I agree that for us an aquaria is a luxury. But to the divers collecting for us, our luxuries are a means to feed their families. Especially when they have over fished the food fish stocks to the point of no recovery. I think this industry can help a lot of people in the developing world if it is done correctly.

Cheers,
Tim

[BlueAbyss]

Originally Posted by IanWR

Let me first say how much I am enjoying a heated discussion that has not devolved completely into name calling and ad hominum attacks. Kudos all!
- Ian

Been trolling since my tank went down but ^ +1.

Also a semi-local craft paper mill logs and uses trees from my area. Not chips or leftovers, they cut and use good sized jack pine and white spruce. Just thought people should know, I see a lot of logging trucks on my local roads.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by IanWR

I hope everyone who is passionate about reefs, the ocean, the environment, what have you, can always try to find points of agreement and at least understand those points where there is difference. By building on consensus, and understanding (and possibly addressing) differences, real world workable solutions can be achieved.

Ha ha... maybe they should send you over to Beirut...

I think our building on consensus is pretty good on Canreef,... too good actually,... and sometimes newbies are led down the wrong path. That's why it's good to also discuss our differences.

But I prefer to use direct experience (and listen to others with their direct experiences) to state my case, rather than just see quotes or references to others on the internet. People who just disagree (or agree) and can't back up what they are saying don't have a lot of credibility with me.

[kien]

Originally Posted by IanWR

Wintner is saying that unlike fishing for food, fishing for aquaria is a luxury that is not needed. I think we could agree on the point that aquaria are luxuries, if not on the morality of luxury.

Indeed, I think we all understand and agree that our hobby is a luxury. Taking that notion a step further, I believe that mankind has based most of his existence on luxuries. If we roll the clock back a few hundred thousand years we will find our very first few luxury items, the controlled use of fire and primitive tools. There was a time when we existed without such things so in fact, they were not requirements for life. They simple made living easier and more luxurious.

From there we had opened Pandora's box and nearly everything in our history from that point can be attributed to luxurious living. The animals that we domesticated with the help of our tools. The paper that we invented to write on. The animals that we slaughtered for clothing and housing. The vast stretches of land we claimed to grow food or cotton for the clothes on our backs. The giant holes that we dig into the ground to harvest metals or dig up oil to fuel our cars, planes, boats or manufacture plastics and rubber for the shoes on our feet. The rivers that we dam up to power our cell phones and internets. These are all luxuries. Is riding your bike really "green" ? How did your bike come to be? Did it organically spring from the earth?

The luxury and impact of marine aquaria is just a drop of water in a tidal wave of human impact.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by kien

Indeed, I think we all understand and agree that our hobby is a luxury. Taking that notion a step further, I believe that mankind has based most of his existence on luxuries. If we roll the clock back a few hundred thousand years we will find our very first few luxury items, the controlled use of fire and primitive tools. There was a time when we existed without such things so in fact, they were not requirements for life. They simple made living easier and more luxurious.

From there we had opened Pandora's box and nearly everything in our history from that point can be attributed to luxurious living. The animals that we domesticated with the help of our tools. The paper that we invented to write on. The animals that we slaughtered for clothing and housing. The vast stretches of land we claimed to grow food or cotton for the clothes on our backs. The giant holes that we dig into the ground to harvest metals or dig up oil to fuel our cars, planes, boats or manufacture plastics and rubber for the shoes on our feet. The rivers that we dam up to power our cell phones and internets. These are all luxuries. Is riding your bike really "green" ? How did your bike come to be? Did it organically spring from the earth?

The luxury and impact of marine aquaria is just a drop of water in a tidal wave of human impact.

+1.... And this will just continue,... until the next asteroid hits... In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my reefing, flying, biking, hiking, etc, etc....

[BlueAbyss]

Didn't have time to post further this morning, was on my way to work.

I think that taking all of this into account is difficult for the average person. It's often extremely difficult, especially in our consumerist society, to see the impact that buying one product over another has on the world at large. I often feel that environmentalists fail to see the larger picture or that their scope is too narrow, insofar as saying "the ornamental aquatic industry is destroying our reefs". That's like saying cows are responsible for the hole in the ozone layer (anyone heard of the ozone layer lately?).

All species benefit from conservation, the average person should be able to see that. But wait, I'm speaking from my own point of view... a person living in a much poorer country may not see the world in the same light as I do. The guy trying to feed his family while leading a rather dangerous life on a shrimp trawler probably doesn't think about the barren wasteland he leaves behind. He thinks about his family, the dangers of his profession... and his paycheck. And I feel for him, whether I support him or not. That said, I'm careful about where my shrimp comes from and I don't eat shrimp often.

I'm also aware of the fact that everything has what I call an 'oil price'. In my case, everything has a much higher 'oil price' because I live fairly remote. I have yet to have livestock shipped in on a plane, but the time is coming... and I'm acutely aware of the price paid for the kerosene to run the jet engines. It's cheaper than driving to Saskatoon... but probably just as bad for the environment.

Environmentalists (and also groups like PTA that border on the absurd at some times) need a wider scope. The reefs are linked to the forest, the earth connects with the sky etc etc... and killing off the aquarium industry will NOT stop the destruction of the reefs and oceans.

End rant. Looks like something that should have been in the lounge