The ecological impacts of our addiction

[jglackin]

I posted this on another board local to where I live, but I wanted to post this here as well for your feedback and insights.

I have toiled over this for quite some time. It wasn't until I went to Inland Aquatics the other day, and found what I consider a viable alternative, that I have decided to work on taking a stand.

Before I pose this to you, let me first tell you a little about me: I am a vegan. For those of you that do not know what that is, a vegan is someone that does not eat or consume any animal products at all. More specifically, I am a dietary vegan. I will not eat animal products. I will consume, leather shoes, etc., but I keep the consumption to a bare minimum. Most vegans, in my opinion, are animal rights focused. I am not. Believe it or not, I am a pro-hunting vegan (long story that has nothing to do with this discussion). My reasons for being vegan are for health reasons and for ecological reasons. As time has gone by and as I have travelled more, I have evolved to be far more ecological in my views regarding ecology and conservation. So, to net it out, my reasons for being vegan are largely driven by my belief that we are destroying our wild ecosystems in our pursuit for animal based food sources. And since the seas are my passion, I am even more focused on how our eating habits affect the ocean. Whether it be from pollutants and erosion caused by livestock farming, pesticides and phosphates from improper crop farming, to gill netting, long lining, and fish farming practices. I have been diving in many places. I used to live in Ft. Lauderdale and would dive every weekend in the summer with my friends and used to love it. I went diving in the Galapagos, a place where commercial fishing is largely banned, and I got to see what the sea looks like when we are not pummeling it with fishing boats and pollution. I went diving one more time in Florida after my first trip to Galapagos and never went again(I did go back to Galapagos). Once I knew what the sea should look like, I found diving in Florida to be very sad and boring.

Anyway, here goes:
I went to Inland Aquatics's facility this week, I was very pleased to see that they make their own live sand and live rock. They culture it in tanks over a period of years. None of it is collected from the wild. Also, much of their coral is fragged and cultured in their systems. I believe that they still bring in wild collected corals, but it appears that this is kept to the minimum. The same goes for fish and invertebrates.

What are your thoughts on our hobby with regards to wild collection? Many of the corals and live rock available are coming from places where they are stripping it from a wild reef. Are we contributing to the ongoing destruction of our wild reefs? How do you deal with this? What are your thoughts/philosophies?

Before you respond, it's important to know that my choices are my own personal choices. I do not try to push my choices on anyone. I am not judging anyone or trying to make myself look or feel better than anyone else. We all have our own way of doing things and I respect this.

[drbronx]

Excellent post. I share a number of your concerns. I have becoming increasingly concerned that our hobby is becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The reefkeeping hobby is burgeoning rapidly and is becoming a multi-billion dollar per year hobby. As such there is increasing financial incentive, especially in many poorer nations such as the Phillipines, Indonesia etc. to exploit their reefs for live rock, fish and corals. In many areas there is minimal governmental regulation or ability to monitor or prosecute violations of existing collection violations. Fortunately, international legal organizations such as CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna) are attempting to address such issues with various degrees of success. Coral reefs are being assaulted by global warming effects, coastal development, coastal runoff, pollution, and the coral ornament and live collections trade. As hobbiests, it is our imperative to educate ourself about the nature and source of imported species and their means of collection. It does appear that there is a growing impetus to purchase aquacultured corals and fish and to avoid wild caught specimens. Personally, I have recently decided to not purchase any more wild caught species. Other individuals are starting to produce their own rock, propogate corals for sale/trade etc. Fortunately, our abilities have grown so that there should be little need to import corals. Fish is another matter since only a relative few have been succesfully reproduced in captivity. Another concern I have been facing is the tremendous use of energy and the resulting CO2 footprint required by home aquaria. My home reeftanks produce thousands of pounds of atmospheric CO2 per year due to the energy they require see climatecrisis.org to calculate your "carbon footprint". This is my main quandry at this point in time. I could change this by changing from halides to t-5's and a number of other steps, all of which would require spending a bunch more cash which I don't want to do. Thus, I am actually considering breaking down my tanks and helping to set up a reeftank at a local zoo to help raise public awareness. I am wracked by indecision. As much as I love this hobby, I just don't want to be part of the problem.

[JamesJR]

I've been in the hobby for a number of years myself. Not that I am an expert on reef ecology but I think part of the problem is greed and this was part of what made me want to get out of the aquarium retail business. For the most part, I think a big part of the problem is greed and the unwillingness of the consumer to reason or listen to sound advice when they actually hear it. They see the aquarium livestock as some basic commodity that can just be replaced if it dies.
So what happens is you have customers who will buy what they want and rather than avoid losing a sale the stores sell them what they want and keep everything hush hush when they secretely know that it will die.
To me it is one thing to sell people something hardy that could possibly live for decades and even be bred in the tank like pseudochromis or clownfish. In my opinion it is even okay to collect a hardy fish with a huge natural range that breeds all the time like yellow tangs. But to sell something like a moorish idol that has a very remote chance of living longer than even one year in captivity, or a fish with a very limited natural range is something totally different.
The consumer and the retailer will not listen. When I worked retial I would talk people out of buying flowerpot corals, linkia start and a whole matter of sorts and then have them come in saying they got it some place else. The aquarium store owners won't listen because they just do what they have to do to make a buck and pay their rent.
I went into an aquarium shop today and saw about half a dozen Heteractis magnifica anemones in murky water with 2 power compact bulbs over the top. Imagine all the baby clowns that will die because the anemones they needed to find weren't there only to have the anemones die a month later in captivity. I only buy hardy stuff now that has a broad natural range because I know chances are it will live and 100 others just like it didn't have to die to come to my tank. Just because I can keep the dellicate stuff doesn't mean that I should.

[Paul B]

Jim, I like you have dove in many places. After Tahiti, Australia, Hawaii and a few more exotic South Pacific locations I find the Caribbean boring. When I started diving almost 40 years ago the Caribbean had much more life.
I don't believe it is all our fault though. If you dive on Islands that do not export fish like Jamaica their seas are almost devoid of any living thing. The people there eat most of the fish. There are many nets that will indiscriminately catch anything. I don't blame the fisherman, they have to eat but I want to show that the reefs are being depleted by man for all sorts of reasons.
I saw on Martinique lookdowns, tangs and moral eels for sale on the sand for fifty cents a pound. Most of the fish were just left to rot on the beach for lack of customers.
Also in Jamaica I saw literally tons of bleached coral in the streets for sale as living room curios. There is almost no more coral left in Jamaica. I dove on Bequa which is a small Island near St Lucia a few years ago after a hurricain, most of the corals were toppled and dead due to run off from the land.
I am sure, in time almost all fish willl be aquacultured. It is done every day with salmon. Of course a salmon will be easier then a moorish Idol but one wild caught pregnant moorish Idol can produce thousands of eggs. When someone with the insite and money comes along this will happen. All that is needed is a little more knowlege about their husbandry and some land by the sea.
Fish spawn all the time, it's what they do. Most healthy fish are filled with eggs. These eggs can perpetuate this hobby with little or no impact on the natural resources. Eventually, wild fish will be unavailable to us and this will be the only alternative. We may even be able to re-populate the reefs. I hope so.
Paul

[jglackin]

Paul,

It's a sad state of affairs, no doubt. To be clear, I don't blame the decimation of reefs solely on aquariasts. I would say that our hobby only plays a small percentage of the problem. What has the largest impact is over fishing and livestock farming, in my opinion. And neither of these practices look like they are going to slow down any time soon. So, the destruction will continue at an ever increasing pace.

Aquaculture is something that may or may not help. I was reading recently, for every kilo of farm raised salmon, shrimp, or other carnivorous fish, it requires 1.8 kilos of fish from the sea. So, while we can get warm and fuzzy that the fish are farm raised, the ecological impacts are still there. They still need to trawl for bait fish to feed that salmon and the shrimp. Also, the pollution from these aqua farms is significant.

I hope that one day we can raise most of our fish and corals for this hobby. My fear is that, by the time we get our act together on the technology, there will be no fish or corals left to aquaculture.

[JamesJR]

I don't think aquaculture or reintroducing corals can save the reefs because if the habitat becomes destroyed or otherwise cannot sustain reefs anymore because of pollution or other factors, then there won't be anyplace to put these corals.

[Paul B]

James that may be true. I was in Tahiti last year and I wanted to go to an oyster farm. I was told that the water on Bora Bora is too polluted not for oysters and they are only cultured on a distant isolated island. Bora Bora is 6000 miles from the nearest land and it is too polluted for oysters.

Bora Bora.

[joedirt54]

This thing of ours is a double-edged sword...

On one hand I would rather buy a aqua-cultured coral than a wild one and some day I might just have a coral in my tank that is nowhere in the wild...on the other hand I just purchased a flame angel and brain that is now missing from some natural reef.

On one hand is the crappy LFS that kills more corals and fish than it sells and one the other hand is the one person that sees a captive coral or reef fish in that crappy LFS that grows in knowledge and respect to the point of posting on this forum(like me)...

Our hope is this site and others like it...knowledge is a lot easier to come by now and with it will breed more responsible reefkeeping and fish keeping.

So, let us all, lecture less and help others to find info on the internet...Not that the internet doesn't include misinformation, it's just not profit driven on most of the sites like this.

Reefkeepers are the hunters of the Aquatic world...Who gives profanity removed if there are no more animals to hunt? The tree-huggers or the hunters? Where are african animals doing well...in hunted areas! Because hunters pay the money to keep the poachers at bay and manage the kill to support the sport and ecosystem. un-hunted areas of africa are over grazed and over poached.

The same will happen to GBR, without a profit no one will care. They will continue to blame global-warming when it is their runoff-farming/ mangrove killing that is hurting the GBR. Meanwhile, the marshals/fuji/etc will continue to thrive because the wholesalers will protect their investment.

Dirt

[scottras]

Originally posted by joedirt54

The same will happen to GBR, without a profit no one will care. They will continue to blame global-warming when it is their runoff-farming/ mangrove killing that is hurting the GBR. Meanwhile, the marshals/fuji/etc will continue to thrive because the wholesalers will protect their investment.

Dirt

The GBR is protected. It is also one of Australia's highest earning tourist regions. The tourist industry brings in more profit than wild collection could hope to achieve.

Hope that helps.

[jglackin]

Originally posted by joedirt54
Reefkeepers are the hunters of the Aquatic world...Who gives [profanity] if there are no more animals to hunt? The tree-huggers or the hunters? Where are african animals doing well...in hunted areas! Because hunters pay the money to keep the poachers at bay and manage the kill to support the sport and ecosystem. un-hunted areas of africa are over grazed and over poached

Sorry, but I believe that you are grossly overstating the value that hunters bring to the equation. Ecotourism in Africa does considerably more for the wild ecosystems than hunting ever will. The millions of tree huggers spend considerably more than the few with a blood lust to kill an elephant or a lion. Sure, you can argue that hunting in the United States has allowed for there to be far more deer in the US now than there ever has been. That is not a good thing. The hunting is what has played a large role in killing the apex predators that have kept the deer populations in check. Now that we have killed all of the wolves, bears, and other natural predators, the deer are booming in numbers and overbrowsing and wiping out plant species that other animals rely on for food and cover. As long as we don't mind living in a world with little more than deer, pigeons, raccoons, rabbits and squirrels, everything is right on track. But if we respect biodiversity, then we are in deep trouble. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that hunting organizations like Ducks Unlimited and others do an incredible job at wetland reclamation and habitat restoration, but it is not enough. We have to stop the encroachment, pollution, and the NIMBY mentality we all have.

Same with the seas. The pollock populations are rising. There are bumper "harvests" being taken. This sounds great, except until you dig down and understand why. Shark populations are being decimated. Rock fish populations are being wiped out. The predators that live off of pollock are being wiped out by huge trawlers going down 2000 feet and taking everything in their path. The pollock are the pigeons of the sea world. They are incredibly hardy and they will reproduce and rebound. Rockfish and sharks are like the wolf and the bear, once they are gone, they are gone.

Reefs are incredibly delicate and once they are gone, they will be gone forever and the questions is, does reefkeeping help or hurt the situation? Are we doing more harm than good when we buy wild collected specimens?

Since I posted this thread a while back, I have thought more about it and I have decided that I will only stock my tank with cultured corals, live rock and frags. I will not judge anyone that does otherwise, but I personally feel that this is what I should do. I just will not feel right if I am contributing to the further destruction of our wild reefs.

[Samala]

Fees associated with hunting, for example in the US, actually help support organizations that protect wildlife and wild areas. I dont know about the safari expeditions in Africa, but permitted hunting, with seasons, bag limits and other meaningful restrictions, is working quite well. It generates enough in term of inherent value to people and in monetary terms to keep wild spaces open and managed. It also generates funds for research, restoration, and active protection of our remaining resources.

Not all hunting is a bad thing. Have we made mistakes? Absolutely. Have we made some mistakes so severe they cannot be corrected? Possibly. We are learning some very hard lessons when it comes to the reintroduction of wolves and other large predators. I certainly agree with you in that we cannot afford to continue to make these sorts of mistakes in the future, on the ocean or on land.

Not all wild collection is a bad thing. If we can establish meaningful limits, restrictions, and enforce these protections, we can continue to fund economies in small island nations which depend upon the money generated from their natural resources (reefs, fisheries, etc).

If we can't inspire people to want to save and protect a natural resource just because its beautiful and (may or may not) have intrinsic value, then we can convince people to protect and save something which has other measures of value.

Now obviously this means many things further down the pipeline in the possession of wild collected animals: better care for collected animals, a more efficient distribution system, a better survival rate of collected species, and better husbandry overall. If we can learn to wisely use what is actually collected, we wont need to harvest as much to keep up with demand.

Plus.. demand for wild collected animals could stand to come down a bit (or more). There are ways to aquaculture fish and corals without disrupting the local environment. Its going to cost time and money, but it will be worth it in the end.

I think the future of our hobby will rely upon: wisely making use of collected animals, learning to raise more of our best-loved corals, fish and invertebrates and supplying them to the market, and making use of more energy efficient technology in our life support systems.

This was an excellent thread by the way.

>Sarah

[AJtheReefer]

I think the most important contribution of our hobby is the ecological awareness gained by the hobbyist. And hopefully this makes us more responsible with the environment, especially outside the sea. I believe external environmental forces are more damaging to the coral reefs, than internal causes (wild life collection, etc.)

I don't see any other great benefits. Once we take a critter from the ocean, that critter loses the opportunity to adapt to their ever changing environment and reproduce.

I don't think this hobby is environment friendly, nor I think it would ever be. I have accepted this.

With that said, we can minimize the impact. By trading frags, buying tank raised stock, etc.

[jglackin]

Originally posted by AJtheReefer
I don't think this hobby is environment friendly, nor I think it would ever be. I have accepted this.

With that said, we can minimize the impact. By trading frags, buying tank raised stock, etc.

I have to agree with you 100% on this one.

[Grivai]

I think there are some universal truths that we can all accept:

We HAVE overfished the vast majority of the oceans, in a commercial sense at least, primarily for food.

This process has destroyed marine habitats and depleted numerous species globally, many of these have never been studied as they have had no commercial value - they were simply destroyed as a part of the process (by trawling etc)

Millions and millions of tonnes of 'non-target' species (which are perfectly edible to your average consumer) are simply wasted and left to die purely because they were not 'targeted' on a particular trip/harvest etc. This is in addition to the dolphins, turtles, crusaceans etc etc etc that get caught along the way...and the sea birds (Albatross etc) that are also drowned in their thousands as 'bycatch' on longlines...

Some 70 MILLION sharks (apex predators and important for trophic/food web relationships) are killed anually, purely for their fins (sold mostly to Asian regions, Hong Kong and Taiwan etc)...this has caused massive imbalances in marine ecosystems (excessive numbers of rays etc, who now exploit shellfish populations more heavily etc etc)

Soooooo, why do people worry about the impacts of reef collection for aquaria - which if done 'sustainably' (not looking to open another can of worms here, so lets say without cyanide, dynamite etc) is minimal when compared to the above (and many, many more issues i.e. runoff from livestock agriculture into the oceans and resulting nutrient pollution, sedimentation from deforestation etc)....if they happily support modern fishing and agricultural practices by buying into these at the supermarket??

Unless we minimise or eliminate our consumption of animal products (or source these products sustainably - and no aquaculture at present is CERTAINLY NOT sustainable, i can happily provide evidence), for whatever reason - and dont support these pervasive practices by voting with our dollars, it seems somewhat trivial (probably too harsh a term) as to whether your clowns are from a tank or a reef - I commend the concern though, dont get me wrong, and trying to do things more ethcially is great! Supply and demand still holds true though.

Until we get the big things right, our hobby, while being far from environmentally friendly and definitely worthy of discussion (as i said dont get me wrong) places less pressure on the oceans than a whole host of other things.

Its great to see threads like this however, and the more aware we are of what keeping marine aquariums costs the reefs we love, the better. We could help by donating money to reef protection initiatives directly (the right ones of course). With the amount we spend and waste on this luxurious hobby we could at least make our selves feel better about sleeping at night (haha) by trying to offset it somehow...it shouldnt be about all or nothing, else we may as well not even get up in the mornings, but we can all make individual differences and sacrifice some of our selfishness to help elsewhere....if we do really care.

Im not trying to offend or undermine the people who are already concerned and trying to do the right thing (sarah and the guy who started the post for instance) - nice work guys!.

There are people who will disagree completely, they are probably people who will also never do anything that will interfere with their own lifestyles and levels of comfort to help the situation (it could be as simple as taking the plastic bags our fish come in back to the shops for re-use rather than landfilling), and who will justify their own actions or criticise those of others regardless of the good intentions.

[samtheman]

Why not support birth control?

[Grivai]

I agree absolutely....unfortunately that is often an overly sensitive and morally complex issue for some, or too those who believe the rights of humans to duplicate without restriction are worth far more than those of other species.

Its totally true that human population pressures are the catalyst for a lot of the problems we face today, so is the polarisation of wealth and human greed. Why has some fool been able to make a few billion dollars selling parts of the moon for instance? That money could do a hell of a lot down here!

[Samala]

I'm sure there are better places to discuss the support (or not) of birth control and its potential positive and negative impacts on society.

I dont think this message board, or at least this thread on the ecological impacts of our reefkeeping hobby, is the place to discuss it.

>Sarah

[Grivai]

Agreed, but still - Damn censorship!

[jglackin]

"Soooooo, why do people worry about the impacts of reef collection for aquaria - which if done 'sustainably' (not looking to open another can of worms here, so lets say without cyanide, dynamite etc) is minimal when compared to the above (and many, many more issues i.e. runoff from livestock agriculture into the oceans and resulting nutrient pollution, sedimentation from deforestation etc)....if they happily support modern fishing and agricultural practices by buying into these at the supermarket??"

A buddy of mine uses the same excuse when he chucks his trash out his car window. "How can you worry about a candy wrapper when corporations are throwing out tons of trash every day?"

I agree with you about food consumption, however. I do not eat any seafood.

[Grivai]

You got me wrong! I said dont get me wrong! As I also said its not about doing all or nothing, and also that small individual actions are important - so I think being concerned about the impacts of the hobby is totally important, im with you 110% - but I guess that comment applies more to the people like your buddy, who would probably not do anything about the bigger issue either and justify inaction on either issue on the basis of the bigger one being in the 'too hard basket'?

So, to qualify my position, both are important....

Sorry, I wrote that post pretty quickly and probably didnt check the way it flowed together...I would like to think that I'm not a hypocrite!

[zaf888]

def. a double edged sword. ive had people come into my house and see the tank that new nothing about fish and they were floored, asking me a million questions. ive had people start their own tanks even. i agree is will take some toll on the world system but i think that it also raises public empathy for the issue.

[Paul B]

Why has some fool been able to make a few billion dollars selling parts of the moon for instance?

I don't consider him a fool, I consider him a a good businessman. I consider the fools that bought it fools.

Anybody want to buy little mineature anemones?

[NATIVEVAMAN]

There are a lot of edible fish on coral reefs the world over. the problem is that nets wont work on a reef. So how do you get the fish off the reef? Why you use dinamite of course. And in doing so you kill more coral and inedible species in a day than reefers could use in two lifetimes.
I read somewhere about an entire coral reef that was covered up with dirt to build an airport.
In florida literaly thousands of staghorn corals have died because the water is to warm.
Literally thousands of coral heads die every day,and not at the hands of reefers.
I dont think we are the problem.....but we can be the solution.
I say go get a boat and go to the reef and get every coral you can and come home and propagate,propogate,propagate.
Would it be easy to repopulate a reef?heck no. But could millions of reefers the world over do it? Heck yes........lets get started.

[jglackin]

I am assuming, hoping, that this was tongue in cheek.

Corals in the Florida Keys are dying from many things. The "RO" water supply for the Keys is the Florida Everglades. The Everglades are so polluted at this point, the State health officials recommend that people eat no more than one fish a month from the Everglades and pregnant women and people with suppressed immune systems stay completely away from it. What affect do you think billions of gallons of phosphate rich, heavily polluted water being pumped into the Keys every day is having on the corals? Then, throw in a bunch of amateur divers in the water stomping all over everything and dragging their gear over the coral heads as they try to figure out how to control their buoyancy, and you have a lot of dead and dying coral.

Sure, there are much bigger problems going on with the coral reefs than reef keeping. Just like throwing your soda cans out the window of your car, there are much bigger problems with pollution from corporations and third world countries, so why stop throwing your trash out the window of your car, right?

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Jim, you are preaching to choir on this one, I agree with you.I guess my point would be this. We are the ones doing the most visibal damage to the reefs because people see the direct results of what we do (buy coral and live rock). They dont see all the other things that are happening in Florida or figi or your neighbor dumping the old oil from his car in the gutter.Wether we like it or not, wether its true or not,we are being blamed.I just think its up to us to do something about it besides pointing fingers at the other guy.This planet is sick and we as a people have made it that way at least in some small way. Now we need to fix it and whining wont get the job done.(Not implying that you were whining).
Was my comment about going down to figi and bringing back the coral tongue in cheek,maybe a little. Was my comment about repopulating a reef tongue in cheek,absolutly not.Are there other problems beside what I mentioned in my last post? Certainly there are. I bet together we could fill a book.