Maybe the solution to correct a few issues that we seem to be throwing around here isn't to limit the collection, go ahead and allow it; but put a $10 (or more, maybe much more, say $50) per fish tariff on exported fish from Hawaii. Better yet, put that in as an import tariff to the US on all wild caught fish sold to the hobby and invest the proceeds into every place that aquarium fish are collected; habitat, better collection methods, cyanide testing, etc.. Make sure there is no tariff on aquacultured livestock, allowing them to finally have a price advantage and profits to help them open more breeding programs and increase business opportunities in aquaculture. Let's face it, the reason that we don't have more aquaculture now isn't that it's not more ethical, it's that aquacultured fish are typically more expensive, and the average buyer doesn't want to spend a few dollars more for the aquacultured variety. Every shop owner I know says the same thing, when I ask for the aquacultured fish they will often tell me that they don't get them in very often since if they put them side by side and there is more than a couple dollar difference in price, nobody buys the aquacultured. I'd also propose that as soon as any species has been proven to be able to be aquacultured that the species is then closed for wild collection and sale as soon as it's possible to aquaculture in a decent quantity. Doing these thing would really push this hobby to something sustainable and capable of being around in the future.
Look at how it's happened with Clownfish, the craze over the past few years for strange variants has all but negated the high volume sale of wild caught fish as there aren't any wild caught "lighting, snowflake, etc." variants. So you say this will raise the price at the local aquarium store, yes it will, and it's intended to do just that. As a long term hobbyist (over 30 years) I have to agree with on a few comments here, as the hobby has become more popular the situation hasn't got better, it's getting worst with unethical stores popping up all over. I remember when I got into this hobby in the 80s I was grilled by a store owner (one of only two saltwater stores in a city of half a million, now there are half a dozen, many coming and going on a regular basis) before I could buy anything, they refused to sell me a fish until I could describe the setup I had, all the livestock, how long it has been running, how I was going to deal with a new fish, introduce it to my tank, etc. My personal observations (so no facts to back this up, just 30+ years of being in the hobby) are that there are generally two types of saltwater fish (reef) keepers, those who are in it the long haul, and typically have fish (corals, etc.) for a long time, often decades, and often the same specimens. And then you have the short timers, who are in it a few years at most. And unfortunately not that many make the jump to long term. Look at all the equipment being sold after a few years, and it's not all from upgrades, many I see are those who burn out, i.e. are tired of paying for livestock they kill off. The problem is these people are kept in the hobby too long because the cost of killing fish (or coral) isn't that great compared to the cost of the rest of their system. So they drop anywhere from hundreds to thousands on a tank setup, and then begin to kill off livestock without feeling too much of a financial burden because livestock is cheap. Think of it, I can buy many fish for well under $100 each, often under $30. Someone kills a $30 fish, they go buy another, and another... If they (or I) killed off a $100 fish, or a $200 fish, they think twice as to why it died, and maybe would spend more time looking to correct the problem before throwing more fish in their tank. But the reality is the sales volume in this industry is built on bringing people into the hobby, and in some respect churning them back out so you can get some new people willing to spend a few hundreds/thousands before giving up and moving on. In general I'm probably not speaking to those on this thread, you are actually taking time to get on a web site that congregates people who do care and want to have great tanks and share their experiences. But I can't believe that all aquarists are this way; think of the numbers we are talking about just out of Hawaii, 300,00 to 500,000 Yellow Tangs alone each year, with a majority of those coming to the US. In 2010 the estimate was there were maybe 700,000 saltwater tanks in the US, so even if that number has increased some that's still a small number compared to the number of fish being imported. What is the average lifespan of a Yellow Tang in a tank, I had a Yellow Tang that lived for 8 years before I gave it away when I moved and couldn't see trying to move a large fish like that. I have one now that is a couple years old, along with a few other fish all at least 3 years old from when I moved last. I have a Percula Clown that is now 24+ years old, it came with my original used tank I bought and I've had it 24 years now. I kept it through three moves, including one that was 125 miles as I couldn't part with a fish I'd had that long. So if people were really keeping their fish healthy for many years, we wouldn't need half of the fish collected today would we? So why not put incentives in for broader aquaculture, and make it to where everyone will think twice before churning through fish after fish.
