83 Species of Coral Will Be Illegal to Buy, Sell, or Trade Starting Next Week

[dotcommer]

I just found this posted by another reefer in a Forum that doesn't get much traffic. I thought it should be reposted in this reef discussion forum.


(POSTED YESTERDAY IN ANOTHER FORUM)

Our hobby is in jeopardy.
NOAA proposal threatens to earmark 83 species of coral as endangered.

What does that mean for us? The end of our hobby as we know it.

Imagine if we could no longer buy, sell, trade, or even remove and replace any number of very common aquarium species we have in our systems. Nearly all common stony corals including many of our favorite Acropora, Montipora, Porites, Pocillopora, Seriatopora, Pectinia, Pavona and Millepora species. In addition many of our favorite large polyp stony species such as Hammer coral, Frogspawn and Candy Cane corals will be illegal to even grow and share with your friends.

This would make no distinction between wild collected, maricultured, farmed, or aquacultured. The result is it could be a felony to give a branch of Hammer Coral to a friend, punishable by up to a $50,000 fine and 1 year in jail for doing so.

Help us fight! We only have until APRIL 6th to file opposition! That is only a few days away, please take the time to send feedback today!

To register your opposition to this regulation:

Electronic Submissions: Click "œComment Now!" icon and complete the required fields, and enter or attach your comments.

Postal Mail Submissions:
Regulatory Branch Chief
Protected Resources Division National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Regional Office 1601 Kapiolani Blvd. Suite 1110 Honolulu, HI 96814
Attn: 82 Coral Species proposed listing
or
Assistant Regional Administrator Protected Resources Division National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Regional Office 263 13th Avenue South
Saint Petersburg, FL 33701
Attn: 82 Coral Species proposed listing

Fax submissions:
808-973-2941: Attn: Protected Resources Regulatory Branch Chief
or
727-824-5309: Attn: Protected Resources Assistant Regional Administrator

Copies of relevant documents:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/invertebrates/corals.htm

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2012/11/82corals.html

US NOAA Coral Species Listing II_ALT

 

[GroktheCube]

They will not be making a decision until November, I believe.

I wrote my rep, and will be writing my senators in addition to making a comment.

I have absolutely no problems with restricting or banning wild collection (though ocean acidification, global warming, and pollution are the primary threats. Collection isn't even listed as a concern in the proposal), but aquacultured corals should not be impacted. The proposal is a bit silly, as it doesn't even do anything to combat the primary problems.

 

[mhurley]

To clarify your title, NOAA is accepting comments until April 6th. As was mentioned above, this is a long way from being voted on, so nothing is going to be illegal next week.

I cannot count how many "this is the end of our hobby" threads and proposed laws there have been since I joined here in 1999.....a lot....and we're still here. .

That said, fell free to discuss this, but the first person to throw their political commentary into the thread will get it closed, like all the other threads on this topic so far. People just can't help themselves it seems.

 

[saf1]

Lol - removed my comment so it isn't closed.

 

[Khemul]

So basically, by default, soft corals will be the next reef-tank fad...

Time to start hoarding for the coming market boom. :rollface:

 

[theboywiggans]

It doesn't make sense to me........we all buy/swap frags from other hobbyists to protect the wild specimens. Surely they can just put the law to use by making importing illeagal, that way anything bought/sold/swapped/given within the country can only be tank grown and therefore NOT be affecting the well being of coral in the wild?????
Still, it will only work if all the countries in the world had the same laws!!!!

 

[james30ct]

They're trying to make it so you cant buy an aquacultured frag but its perfectly fine to cool nuclear reactors around the world with the ocean water. Makes perfect sense to me.

 

[dkeller_nc]

There's another aspect to this. Those of us that are experienced (as in "old"! ) remember a time when keeping a saltwater fish alive, even a clownfish, was very difficult.

And corals? Forget it - the most they would last would be a few months. The available lighting was too weak and way too yellow, and having the ability to walk into the LFS and buy plankton, live rotifers, live copepods, fresh fish roe, and all the other things we now have available to feed corals was a fantasy.

In that world, there would be no possibility of maintaining an artificial sanctuary for coral species to re-populate a reef that was destroyed through pollution, invasive species, over-fishing, etc... in the way that humans now maintain a reserve of large land animals that ensures species will not go extinct.

Banning the trade in mari-cultured and aqua-cultured corals would ensure that many unique species will indeed go extinct because there will be no artificially-maintained resevoir. In that same vein, completely banning wild collection will ensure that the advance in knowledge we've gained in LPS and SPS corals will come to a halt with what is known about commonly kept species. There won't be the opportunity for aquarists to dope out what it takes to grow and reproduce many reef organisms that are currently very difficult to keep alive, much less "farm".

I'm reminded of what was thought about breeding marine angelfish in the mid-nineties: utterly impossible to come up with and culture an appropriate food source for the larval stage. Seems that one decade's "impossible" is the next decade's "why not?" and the thrid decade's "routine".

 

[saf1]

They're trying to make it so you cant buy an aquacultured frag but its perfectly fine to cool nuclear reactors around the world with the ocean water. Makes perfect sense to me.

Actually, using sea water to cool nuclear reactors makes perfect sense. I mean, how much of sea water is there compared to land mass? Outside a few incidents nuclear power is safer than flying on air planes.

I'm not sure who is driving what here but I'm sure it all comes down to money. Not many people really care about the reefs let alone understand how they work. It is all gloom and doom or global warming. Yes, man, people, do strange things to the environment to grow. We evolve.

Anyway, the hobby will be fine more or less. Just means we share among one another more. Oh...and prices will go up.

 

[GroktheCube]

My hope is that non-natives will be minimally restricted. I'm trying to think of an example of a foreign species on the endangered list that is commonly kept as a "pet", but the only examples I can think of are parrots. Restrictions on them are minimal, other than moving them in and out of the country. They all need to have a band on their foot, but otherwise that's about it.

Are there any corals currently endangered or threatened other than those from the Caribbean? I'm trying to find a model to give a clue about how this might effect us. Parrots are the only example that comes to mind, and if the restrictions are comparable, effects on the average hobbyist will be minimal. Aquaculturists might have a little extra paperwork to do, and frag plugs might need to be marked, or perhaps some sort of certificate of origin sent out with frags.

 

[MileHiReefR]

The government sure knows how to **** people off...

 

[Potsy]

My hope is that non-natives will be minimally restricted. I'm trying to think of an example of a foreign species on the endangered list that is commonly kept as a "pet", but the only examples I can think of are parrots. Restrictions on them are minimal, other than moving them in and out of the country. They all need to have a band on their foot, but otherwise that's about it.

Are there any corals currently endangered or threatened other than those from the Caribbean? I'm trying to find a model to give a clue about how this might effect us. Parrots are the only example that comes to mind, and if the restrictions are comparable, effects on the average hobbyist will be minimal. Aquaculturists might have a little extra paperwork to do, and frag plugs might need to be marked, or perhaps some sort of certificate of origin sent out with frags.

The U.S. allows for very limited collection of selected Caribbean corals. For example, five zoanthids or five ricordea polyps per day with a commercial fishing license. Several gorgonians are prohibited. All stony corals are prohibited. Those that are prohibited are almost never seen in the hobby. Those that are restricted are mostly aquacultured.

 

[Dino]

Please direct any commentary to any of the other 3 threads in the Responsible Reefkeeping forum so as there isn't 50 of these threads scattered about .

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2281253
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2281270
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2239804