Quote:
Originally posted by roblack
It is illegal in FL to take any corals or liverock without a proper permit, and from what I understand they are not issuing new permits. Some people have old permits that are still legal. The only exception I know of is those who are granted permits for educational and research purposes. Personally, I am glad the state strictly regulates such practices, our reefs here need some time to recover. However, if conditions do not improve, I would support the collection of local corals to preserve them in private aquaria and hopefully reintroduce them when the environment could sustain them. I talked with someone who works with the state of Florida's aquaculture program about getting permits to collect coral, grow it out, and replant them in new/other areas where they are depleted or gone. I was told that I was not the first to come up with this idea, but it would be unlikely that anyone other than those from a research or educational institute would be granted such.
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The problem with the idea and the reason that they wont even consider it is that once it enters the aquarium setting there is no guarentee that it wont be in contact with something from the pacific... wether it was fish, corals, sand, rock, algae... anything. With that contact comes the chance of introducing something into the wild that could become an invasive species. That in itself could potentially cause more harm than any amount of collecting if the wrong thing was accidently introduced. This is why only state and educational facilities can get permits to collect, because they are stricly limited on what comes into contact with the corals, where as for private entities there is no way to guarentee.