100%. Is there any organization/effort actively trying to improve the survivability of imported tropical fish? Such a waste of life, I do feel guilty about that. And I know it could be done better if people had more respect for living things and not maximizing their business.
Can people stop asking this question? Farm animals are tortured and killed for no reason other than taste. Many fish are killed because people selfishly want to eat their flesh.
This is a very complex issue in Hawaii. First of all, many Hawaiians outside of Honolulu still gain a part of their diet Directly from the land and sea. Some do it because the cost of processed food is so high here, others out of cultural or ecological beliefs. While we don’t eat yellow tangs, and you can show that aquarium trade harvest with careful stewardship of the fisheries does not harm the population many are convinced that there is no actual benefit to allowing the practices of the aquarium trade and can imagine a detrimental effect not seen in limited counting studies of a particular group of fish. So much in Hawaii has been spoiled by the introduction of “modern” practices or new species over the past 230 years it is hard to convince many that our accepted science (such as fish counting studies) is really not missing critical information that will cause is to look back in 50 years and say “oops...I guess that wasn’t such a benign activity.” The Hawaiians had an incredibly well thought out and managed conservation system out of necessity unlike mainland US or Europe. If they screwed up their land and coastal seas, all but a tiny handful of capable ocean voyagers died. They couldn’t just move from Oklahoma’s dust bowls to California’s green valleys. There are various conflicting estimates, but it is possible that the Hawaiians before European contact had a population similar to the size it is today!I don't, but then again I only buy captive bred. There is undoubtedly death and suffering in the captive bred supply chain as well, but I have a hard time believing that it's equal to or more than with wild caught fish. At the very least, fish that are born in the ocean stay in the ocean when you buy captive bred.
Regardless of whether or not you feel guilty about our hobby, we really need to be careful about how this hobby is perceived. The public doesn't have the best understanding or respect for what we do, and there are regular attempts to shut this hobby down. The Hawaii ornamental collection ban is a great case study for why we need to be more careful about how others, not just ourselves, feel about what we do.
This presentation by Dr. Chad Callan sums it up well, but the narrative goes something like this. In 1998, the state of Hawaii performed a study to determine the impact of marine ornamental collection on fish populations. They estimated some populations of popular aquarium fish (yellow tang, Achilles tang, etc) had declined by between 50% and 60%.
Two year after that study was completed, Hawaii set up a few different types fishing areas. The first was a marine protected area (MPA). Marine ornamental collection was banned in these areas. The second was a fish recovery area (FRA). These are areas where fish stocks had been reduced by ornamental collection. Collection was banned in these areas so that fish stocks could recover. Finally, there were "open" areas where collection could continue. Over the next 14 years, yellow tang stocks were monitored in these three areas. The data are below:
In this graph, the MPA is the baseline. Note that the red line, the FRA, recovered to baseline in just about 4 years. The open area where fishing continued stayed lower. The important takeaway is that though the open area trends up and down, it trends the exact same way that the protected area does. More importantly, after almost 15 years of yellow tang collection, the open areas had about the exact same population of yellow tang that they did when the surveys started (about 12/100m2 vs 11/100m2). In other words, collection had almost no effect on the wild populations of tangs around Hawaii.
Despite the fact that the data show fish stocks remaining stable, Hawaii banned collection in 2017. This is pretty remarkable, and I don't think many of us really understand the implications. The collection ban in HI happened not because what we're doing is harming the environment, it happened because of politics and emotions. If bans are happening without data because of emotion and NIMBY-ism, Hawaii and Fiji may only be the beginning.
Unfortunately, perception is reality. It doesn't really matter that we don't feel guilty about keeping fish because we "treat them like pets." As long as the public perceives our hobby as "bad," we're going to have targets on our backs. I'm not saying that we should feel guilty for what we do, and I don't know what the solution is. But the discussion needs to be broader than just what we think about the ethics of our hobby. We also need to consider how outsiders perceive our hobby.
Well said, very well said.
I will throw a wrench in the conversation. Why is captive bred making a difference? It is just a fish that never knew freedom. When the fish hits our tanks captive, hand caught, net caught, cloned, it is all on the same playing field In the tank.
Been waiting forever to use this one
This is an “all or nothing” fallacy. Since someone drives a car, no point in using reusable grocery bags or not killing animals?
I’m sure finding Nemo caused the demise of many a Blue Tang.
It’s a good thing clownfish are pretty bulletproof and tolerate smallish quarters.
U sound the the guy at the strip club telling the dancers “you don’t have to be here!”
I've been yearning all week for some fresh Ahi on the beach in Tahiti and now you go and post this!
And not so fast, but how many tang lovers think these fish are in too small of a container for that many fish?
The worst meal I ever had was at "Island Night" in Rarotonga. I plunged a serving spoon into a plate of some kind of salad, dumped a huge portion on my plate (snorkeling makes me hungry) and when I got back to my seat I looked closer and saw I was staring at a plateful of baby giant clam mantles. I lost my appetite thinking of how much those clams would have cost me back home. Trust me, they look much happier and healthier in a tank than on the plate. So Yeah, I do regret eating what belongs in an aquarium.
Well said, very well said.
I will throw a wrench in the conversation. Why is captive bred making a difference? It is just a fish that never knew freedom. When the fish hits our tanks captive, hand caught, net caught, cloned, it is all on the same playing field In the tank.
Been waiting forever to use this one
