You are hereExtremists Call for Ban on All Aquarium Livestock Collection in Hawaii
Extremists Call for Ban on All Aquarium Livestock Collection in Hawaii
By Ret Talbot
Special to CORAL Magazine
On Wednesday, 5 October, a resolution to ban the aquarium trade in Hawai’i will be up for discussion at the Hawai’i County Council meeting on the island of Hawai’i (the Big Island).
The proposed ban is the latest in a string of proposals to end the collection and sale of fishes and various invertebrates in the Nation’s most important marine aquarium fishery. All previous proposals have been defeated.
Proponents of the ban argue, among other things, that “the aquatic life of the reefs within the State of Hawai’i are being devastated by the collection of reef fishes and other aquatic life” as a direct result of the aquarium trade.
State aquatic biologists with Hawai’i’s Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) disagree with that assessment, and even some stalwart opponents of the aquarium trade, such as the Hawai’i-based LOST FISH Coalition have expressed strong opposition to the anti-trade resolution.
Spearheaded by Anti-Trade Activists from Maui
The resolution—Resolution 130 11—is spearheaded by anti-trade activists from Maui, including wildlife advocate Rene Umberger, left, who tells the public that "virtually all Yellow Tangs collected for the aquarium trade are dead within one year" and that wild populations are being decimated by collectors. [Biologists anad other environmentalists say she and others are using "lies" to scare the public. -ed.]
West Hawai’i is home to the largest marine aquarium fishery in the State of Hawai’i and the aquarium trade has long been a contentious local issue. Robert Wintner (aka Snorkel Bob, also from Maui) has been less public in his support of this resolution, but he recently told CORAL Magazine that he indeed does support the latest call to ban the aquarium trade.
As reported in CORAL Magazine last January, Wintner played a key role in amassing support for the last round of anti-trade legislation in the Winter of 2010-11. While those efforts failed, the debate continues, much to the consternation of West Hawai’i stakeholders who, through their ongoing participation in the West Hawai’i Fisheries Council, are already on the path to better regulating West Hawai’i’s marine aquarium fishery.
"Go Away," says Snorkle Bob
“The debate won’t go away,” Wintner, below, tells CORAL Magazine, “because the vast majority of Hawai’i’s people and visitors want the aquarium trade to go away.”
Winter concedes there is no study or survey data to support the assertion that most Hawai’ians and visitors to Hawai’i are anti-aquarium trade, but, as he puts it, “it’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
Why is it that, according to anti-trade advocates, so many people in Hawai’i have such a visceral negative reaction to the aquarium fishery when they are not opposed to Hawai’i’s food fisheries?
“How many people would condone capture and removal of the most colorful birds in their neighborhoods considering that the bird hunters really want the money?” asks Wintner in response.
A Fishery or Wildlife Trafficking?
The fundamental issue here is that the individuals advocating a ban on the marine aquarium trade in Hawai’i do not view the marine aquarium fishery as a fishery.
The State, on the other hand, does view it as a fishery and manages it as such. All the studies and data in the world could never convince anti-trade activists like Umberger and Wintner that any marine aquarium fishery can be managed in a sustainable manner. “It's not a fishery,” says Wintner emphatically. “It’s trafficking in wildlife for the pet trade. And it’s not sustainable.”
Dr. William Walsh, an aquatic biologist with Hawai’i DAR disagrees.
“There is no fundamental reason why aquarium fishing cannot be sustainably managed,” Walsh said in testimony to the Hawai’i County Council in late September.
“That is what we’re trying to do here in West Hawai’i. It takes effort and time to be sure, but it is doable if we’re allowed to do it.” Given that the aquarium fishery in West Hawai’i is one of the most studied fisheries in Hawai’i and undoubtedly the most studied aquarium fishery, a categorical inability to manage it in a sustainable manner would be a profoundly disturbing conclusion to reach with alarming implications for food fisheries.
“If we can’t successfully manage the aquarium fishery,” asks Walsh, “what hope is there for management of our other fisheries here in Hawai’i?”
While Hawai’i DAR has concerns about certain species targeted by the marine aquarium trade in West Hawai’i such as rare, high-value species like dragon morays and bandit angelfish, as well as those that provide important ecological services (e.g., cleaner wrasses), DAR biologists familiar with the fishery agree with many of the other stakeholders that important steps have been made in the right direction.
These include, but are not limited to, a soon-to-be-enacted 40-Species White List and new bag limits on Kole Tangs, Achilles Tangs and Yellow Tangs.
Even traditionally stalwart anti-trade activists such as the Hawai’i-based LOST FISH Coalition have come out against Resolution 130, expressing concern that a misguided ban based on “a lot of cherry-picked, manipulated data, much of which is grossly out of date” could derail a multi-year, multi-stakeholder process that was just beginning to lay the groundwork for a sustainable fishery.
"A Bunch of Lies"
“[Rene Umberger] is actually attacking what we have accomplished and is passing off untruths about it,” says Tina Owens of LOST FISH Coalition.
“I have been involved in every single step of the establishment of the system we have in place now. I know what’s true and what’s not…. It’s easy to be sucked in to her message, but who wants to be sucked in by a bunch of lies?”
Amongst the alleged lies are discrepancies in data.
“Indeed the resolution bluntly states that the aquatic life of the reefs is being devastated by collection,” says Walsh. “This is simply not true.”
While he acknowledges that people on both sides of the aquarium fishery debate often don’t like the data DAR produces, he maintains he and his colleagues have “a pretty good idea” of what is occurring on the reefs of West Hawai’i.
“The coral reef community is complex and dynamic and species abundances wax and wane even without human influence. Due to recent technological advances in coral reef habitat mapping we’re now able to estimate and track the total population sizes of many reef fishes.”
And what exactly are those estimates showing?
This is Not Devastation
“Over the past twelve years,” says Walsh, right, “the W
est Hawai’i population of Yellow Tang in the 30’-60’ prime reef habitat has increased by just over 337,000 fish. Similarly Kole Tang populations have increased by over 1,019,000 fish.” Walsh points out that these two species make up 91 percent of the total West Hawai’i aquarium catch.
“This is not devastation.”
While the anti-trade activists behind Resolution 130 are indeed passionate about Hawai’i’s reefs and reef life, there is a disconnect between their core argument and the legislative efforts they are promoting. Unwilling to discuss the aquarium fishery as a fishery, their argument against the aquarium trade—everything from collection to keeping fishes and other marine life captive in aquaria—is a moral argument.
The State’s approach to managing fisheries; however, is not primarily about morality—it is about sustainability. In the case of Resolution 130, the anti-aquarium trade lobby has therefore gone after the numbers and claimed “devastation” or, in more commonly used fisheries management language, unsustainability, but the data, according to state marine biologists, simply does not support this claim at this time.
Whether a fish ends up in an aquarium or on a dinner plate, it is still gone from the ecosystem, and whether or not a fishery can be managed sustainably is about numbers, not morality.
Sources: Orangeband Surgeonfish and Yellow Tangs on a Hawaiian Reef in Kona. Ocean Image Photography/Shutterstock.
What to Do: Interested individuals are welcome to submit written testimony before noon on by fax to (808) 961-8912 or by email to
counciltestimony@co.Hawai’i.hi.us.
A Letter to Hawai'i County Council Members
I have heard about Resolution 130 11 only at the 11th hour—it seems a classic attempt to "sneak one by us." If you read nothing else, please hear this.
The never-ending calls to ban a small industry in the state of Hawaii are not based on factual information. They stem from emotional arguments made by people claiming a moral superiority.
We do not live in a country that legislates morality, nor allows one industry to pummel another simply to make the bigger industry look good. This resolution should be summarily dismissed, and similar resolutions in the future should be ignored.
As a marine fish breeder who has been actively promoting and encouraging captive propagation of marine fish for over half a decade now (and a marine aquarist for almost 25 years), I am disheartened to see the relentless attacks being levied at the sustainable marine aquarium fishery in the state of Hawaii.
I must encourage the council members responsible for considering Resolution 130 11 to look at the facts. The facts, as determined by Hawaii's own DAR (the agency responsible for researching and maintaining your fisheries) happen to show that existing management practices are working and in fact, flagship species like the Hawaiian Yellow Tang are in fact on the rise (please see this recent DAR publication - http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/dar/coral/pdfs/6_FISHLIFE_YellowTang.pdf ).
As a breeder who researches and attempts to breed fish that have never been bred, I need access to wild-caught fish. I'm already disappointed with the "White List" compromise because it has ensured that some endemic species will likely never be afforded the opportunity to be preserved, through captive progagation, if all other reef-preservation efforts fail.
I frankly wish that this "White List" solution could be revisited and rethought, and that DAR be empowered to designate quotas for each and every reef fish species of interest in the aquarium trade. Every species should be available at some level that ensures breeders access so that the species has the chance for captive preservation.
Yes, the truth is that the marine aquarium hobbyist cherishes the reefs and the biodiverisity within them.
Were it not for this hobby, I would have no connection or concern for the reefs around the world at all. I probably wouldn't drive a hybrid car, might not care very much about greenhouse gasses, might recycle less, might not cut apart the plastic bands on a 6-pack etc, and really wouldn't care what's happening in Hawaii. It is my hobby that makes me more aware of the world beyond my home, my neighborhood, and my state.
It is this hobby that gave me a mission to leave the world better than I found it, if that's possible. As a marine aquarium hobbyist, not a researcher or scientist or commercial entity, I managed to breed and rear the Harlequin Filefish a few years back. I was the first person in the world to do it. I am anxiously awaiting the day that fellow marine fish breeders replicate my success with this species.
Ironically, the Harlequin Filefish is a gaudy Indo-Pacific reef fish that our hobby and industry had in fact written off as a "cut flower," doomed to die in captivity. For decades many in fact did get collected and usually died in short order. The natural diet of this fish is exclusively certain corals, and in fact, research has shown that as coral reefs die off, this species is the first to vanish from the reefs. This is a fish that may well go from common to facing extinction in the wild as climate change, ocean acidification and pollution wipe out its homes.
However, because of my singular efforts, and through the sharing of my discoveries in CORAL Magazine (article attached), the Harlequin Filefish now has a new future. It was not a governmental, academic, or educational institution, it was an experienced private individual, a Marine Aquarium Hobbyist, who sought out the challenge, tackled it, and gave it back to the world.
I am not the first, nor will I be the last hobbyist, to make such a game-changing discovery. If there had been a ban, an agreement, a White List of some sort, that said this "doomed to die" fish should never be harvested from the wild and sold, I would have never had the opportunity to make this discovery, and I doubt any scientific or academic institution would've ever bothered to do what I did.
Given the forecasts for reef loss, I think it is fair to say that the Harlequin Filefish's fate has gone from "doomed in the wild" to "it may survive in the aquarium industry even if nowhere else" species. Credit where it is due, the aquarium hobbyist, who gets his fish from the industry, made a game-changing contribution for the fate of this beautiful fish.
The people behind the never-ending onslaught against a small industry in Hawaii see a scapegoat in what many would perceive to be a luxury.
ndeed, I must admit, it certainly seems to be a luxury to buy a fish and put it in a tank to watch it swim, live, eat, mate and generally just be happy. It's easy to say it's "wrong" to keep it as a pet, but "right" to eat it, because that's just the way the world works. So better to outlaw the marine aquarium fishery than to go after the foodfish fishery. Ironic that in terms of shear biomass, tons of actual fish, the aquarium fishery harvests almost nothing compared to sportfishing and commercial fishing.
It is also easy to vilify the aquarium collector by manipulating people with emotional pleas rather than the facts (and I wonder if the same people proposing these bans have eaten any meat of any kind lately).
Let's look at this from the fish's point of view. Is it better to be harvested from the ocean instantly, killed through suffocation or freezing while alive, and then having your body be eaten? Or is it better to be collected in a net, cared for, kept alive, placed in a safe travel container, and sent to a predator-free environment where you may live in relative peace and luxury, your needs attended to by someone else, for however long that may be?
And maybe, just maybe, you may even find your way to a fish breeder, who may try to help you reproduce, the offspring that may in fact preserve your species?
If we really want to frame the harvest of fish for the aquarium hobby as a moral, ethical argument, we have to put ourselves in the position of the FISH. We as people strive to live, fight to live, and cling to life, and we're also quite eager to accept a life of cushy retirement.
If I gave you the choice between being in my stomach like the Ahi Tuna I ate for dinner, or being in my quarantine system receiving prophylactic medications like the two juvenile Queen Angelfish that arrived via FedEx this morning, shipped to me by a husband-and-wife team representing a 2nd generation family collecting business in Florida, you'd demand to be the Queen Angelfish.
If if the human race fails to reverse the REAL causes of the problems on the reefs, it is in fact the humble aquarists like myself, and the aquarium industry as a whole, that has the unique capacity and volume to potentialy ark, and save, the corals, invertebrates, and fishes we all share an admiration for.
It is easy to attack the and blame the aquarium industry because it is relatively small, and thus, blocking this industry would be a way for people who want to "save the reef" to say "at least we did something" rather than nothing at all.
But the sad truth is that even if the aquarium industry was having a negative impact, it is negligable in comparison to everything else. I genuinely believe that for whatever negative impact my participation in this hobby may have on a reef, it has been offset many times over by the knowledge I have discovered and given back, and the fish I have spawned and reared, thousands of miles away from any ocean.
David Hannan, reef diver and filmmaker from Australia, spoke at this year's Marine Aquarium Convention of North America, in Des Moines, IA of all places, to an audience of perhaps 1,000 people. Yes, the North American continental convention for our hobby and industry was only attended by roughly 1,000 people. We are not a massive industry and hobby raping and pillaging the reefs. And yet, still, even if only 1,000 people heard it, David Hannan sees in us the one remaining hope for the coral reefs he loves.
Institutions, be they public aquariums, government programs, or educational facilities, lack the funding, the resources, the time and the space to serve as the "ark" for all our reef life. Only the marine aquarium industry has the raw capacity, and the vested interest, in ensuring that every last bit of reef life that we possibly can, will be arked for our future generations.
But we as a group will never answer that call, will never fulfill that role, if we are no longer allowed access to the "raw materials," the never-before-reared reef fishes, inverts and corals, that it takes to get captive propagation going.
Your own management authorities say the aquarium industry can function sustainably, and says it is already doing so. The state of Florida has a long established policy of management that works well. too. And the Marine Aquarium Hobby...what supports the industry, has heard the call that the long-term future for reef life is captive propagation.
If we look to the freshwater aquarium hobby, we see it already taking on this role. The next time you walk into most any FW fish store, you may see a fish called a "Red Tailed Shark". That species is extinct in the wild. It wasn't the aquarium trade, it was damming of native waters that wiped it out. Were it not for the fact that it is a popular aquarium fish, bred in immense numbers in fish farms in Asia, the Red-Tailed Shark would be gone. It exists because the aquarium hobby exists.
The only reason anyone is researching the breeding of fish like the Yellow Tang, is because of the aquarium hobby. I am sure every Hawaiian knows the Yellow Tang, the Huma Huma Triggerfish - these aren't important food fish, but they have monetary value in the aquarium trade. Humankind tends to only preserve that which it values. Banning the aquarium trade ensures you ban a group of people who actually care about the long term wild survivability of the Yellow Tang in the first place.
So to the council, I'll close with this: Resolution 130 11, and all those rejected proposals before them, represent emotional thinking and scapegoating. These proposals are not based on the actual hard data (which is contrary to their rhetoric), nor are they based on science, or in seeing the big picture. I would encourage the Council, who has rejected countless resolutions like this before, to stop wasting its time with vendictive proposals such as Resolution 130 11.
It is time that the state of Hawaii fundamentally reexamine the role that the Marine Aquarium Industry plays in the states valuable natural resources, and looks for ways to promote sustainble harvest and captive propagation within the state to create a vested interest in reef preservation and a long-term plan that ensures that Hawaiians, Americans, and people throughout the world will never be limited to seeing a treasure like the Bandit or Masked Angelfish, or the Yellow Tang, only through pictures in books and the internet.
I want my son to grow up in a world where Yellow Tangs, Huma Huma Triggers, and Flame Angelfish still exist. I am doing my part to ensure that by being a proactive Marine Aquarium Hobbyist. It is time to do your part, to be proactive for your own children, and stop the senseless onslaughts at the industry that helps make my personal mission a reality, and a times, a success for us all.
Best Regards,
Matt Pedersen
MASNA Marine Aquarist of the Year 2009
Duluth, MN, USA
847-732-7333 - cell
matt@cichlidrecipe.com
James Lawrence
Editor & Publisher
Forrest Young Responds
Thanks for your article on potential fish bans in Hawaii.
I hope your publication and especially CORAL readers can vocally support the fact that sensible, regulated marine-life fishing is entirely sustainable if you protect habitat and fight for water quality standards. Habitat protection and water quality enforcement is the key. Tropical fish populations are amazingly resilient.
For example, in January 2009, we had an extreme cold water event in Florida, the likes of which I have never seen in 40 years of diving in the Florida Keys. Back-to-back extremely cold frontal passages with 10-12 days of water temps under 50ºF. We lost almost the entire fish population in shallow water around the Lower and Middle Keys. Anything not large enough to swim offshore to "Gulf-Stream-warmed waters" was "stuck in the refrigerator."
We lost many tracts of immense coral heads that were 6 to 8 feet in diameter, and gorgonians 5 to 6 feet tall, from an entirely natural event, telling me it was a 500 to 1000-year epochal event, not merely a normal winter kill that we get every half dozen years. That man's influence on weather might be another portion of that story.
The real issue is we experienced an almost total fish kill on inshore reef areas, and a severe setback to many tropical invertebrate species. (Typically invertebrates are a bit more eurythermal than fishes.)
I personally did a survey in one of the areas that we dive regularly and swam an entire tank, nearly two hours around an area normally full of species diversity, representing nearly all the families of the common reef-dwelling species.
During this dive I saw some very weary looking grunts and snappers that are quite cold tolerant, 2 or 3 Slippery Dick Wrasses, 0 gobies, 0 blennies, 0 butterflyfish 0 angelfish, 0 cardinals, 0 surgeon fishes, 0 porkfish, zero everything; the entire area was a barren desert, and at the end of the dive (in 65ºF water) I saw one very rough-looking Beau Gregory Damsel.
While having observed cold water fish kills before that were the result of a 1 to 3 day 50ºF event, I have never witnessed such a total kill from the cold. Coming back a month or so later after it warmed up to over 70ºF there were a few more survivors, but you can safely assume that over 90% of the total reef fish population was killed.
Not even a team of the entire cadre of all 165 Florida-licensed marine-life collectors, fishing all in this area for a solid year with unlimited resources at their disposal, could have come close to causing this!
Amazingly, by summer, fish levels were back to 80-percent-plus of normal, and by summer's end recruitment had filled nearly all the available niches and now, 18 months later, we have record catches of the species that we harvest from a fully and demonstrably proven sustainable resource.
Amazing stuff. I hope that CORAL readers will respond to politically, emotionally or commercially motivated guys like "Snorkel Bob" who want to ban reasonable and sustainable fisheries for purely personal reasons.
Forrest Young
Dynasty Marine
Marathon, Florida
James Lawrence
Editor & Publisher