Coral - November/December 2010

Slandering a SuStainable fiShery

This article by Robert Winters (The Dark Hobby, Reef News, page 8) does not come as a surprise as he has been writing negative comments about the industry for as long as I can remember. It amazes me that he goes so far in his accusations that anyone would actually believe a word he says.

I was living in Kona, Hawaii operating a tropical fish exporting business during the period of time when the Kona Coast was discussing and ultimately set up the current management program that limits nearly half of the Kona coastline to aquarium fish collection. It’s been approximately 13 years since those closures took place, and much monitoring data has been collected by the Department of Aquatic Resources.

In the most recent report of data, it shows that the protected areas are nearly fully saturated with Yellow Tangs, and could be at maximum capacity. The open areas however show a trend of decline in those areas, but in 2009 and 2010 have made a huge recovery which we all have seen with the explosion of small Yellows being found along the coastline. This was a great sign, and to some of us it was not surprising as we have seen this before and understand that the fish populations are cyclical. Many species come and go in a natural manner and as time passes we see declines and rebounds.

While there are people like Snorkel Bob who complain about the industry, the science clearly shows that this is a sustainable fishery and we have over a decade of data to back it up. We all need to put Snorkel Bob’s comments into perspective as he makes his living off of the snorkeling tourist industry, even though the areas near beaches and local harbors are closed to aquarium collecting, he continues to make it a personal agenda to hurt the Aquarium Industry and will go to all lengths to slander the reality of the fishery situation.

For the past 10 years or so, I have been on the board
of directors for a nonprofit group called “Reefcheck”
( www.reefcheck.org). This organization has made an ef-
fort to monitor and protect coral reefs worldwide, and
has worked with the Aquarium Industry to develop a
quota-based system where monitoring data is calculat-
ed, and a quota per fish species is generated to create
a sustainable system. I fully support their methods and

gOd in a fiSh bOWl

I am somewhat new to the hobby of reefkeeping, but as a novice I am immeasurably impressed and surprised at the amount of life that can flourish in such a small quantity of water, and I suddenly feel a renewed and deepened respect and consciousness for marine life and the earth in general.

I understand Mr. Winter’s concern for sustaining the natural reefs in our oceans, but don’t you think that the majority of aquarists are nature-lovers who

care about the species we keep and that we’re not just playing God in a fish bowl?

We know that the oceans’ temperatures are on the rise (I hope Mr. Winter will not blame the home aquarist for that) and that coral reefs are in peril, as evidenced by the increasing coral “bleaching.” We know that oil exploration and drilling activities can disrupt the natural balance of a reef system. We know that storm-water sewage systems discharging into a bay or ocean can sweep a myriad of poisons into a marine ecosystem.

We know all of these things (and numerous other problems), yet the home aquarist is somehow held solely responsible for everything gone awry in the world’s coral reefs.