Brickyardgreg
New member
Wow so ignorant and destructive. I can't imagine how much damage they have done since 1976.
the title to this pic says, blue and red corals, if any of you know, dead sps is bone white....., ive never seen a dead sps retain any of its color
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I forwarded their site to PETA and seashepards.
OK TALK TALK TALK WHATS THE PLAN? Petition? Lets get the Sierra Club or Green peace involved.
the title to this pic says, blue and red corals, if any of you know, dead sps is bone white....., ive never seen a dead sps retain any of its color
I was under the impression that they still needed CITES to import skeletons,http://www.fws.gov/offices/directory/ListOffices.cfm?statecode=12
Also when I contacted Sea Shepards and PETA I did it so they would get involved with sending them e-mails. I did not do it so people can shutdown reefing.
Yes, last I knew dried skeletons were still covered under CITES. However, CITES says nothing about how those skeletons are collected. Live or dead does not matter unless there is a specific regulation of the country of origin.
I was under the impression that they still needed CITES to import skeletons, you might want to "ask" the department of fish and wildlife if they're up to date on their permits and paperwork and if their permits cover removing and killing live corals for the purpose of drying it. A lot of those permits cover either live or dead coral, not first the one then the other, if they're complicit in the killing of live coral for the purpose of decoration they might, depending on the country, get into a lot of trouble. If they don't have the right permits they will get into a crapton of trouble and they'll have enough fines to shut them down for life.
FWIW it really looks like they're in Fiji, I guarantee you that if enough people take this up with fish and wildlife they will for sure be getting a visit. Don't just email them with "these guys are weenies", send them pics showing what they're doing. My guess is they don't have permits, and if they do it doesn't cover what they're doing.
I'm not sure which links cover corals in Florida, and don't just go bombing every link with emails until we know the right one... I don't have time at the moment but hopefully someone can research it a bit and let us know the right contact info.
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/
http://www.fws.gov/offices/directory/OfficeDetail.cfm?OrgCode=99431
http://www.fws.gov/offices/directory/ListOffices.cfm?statecode=12
Yes, last I knew dried skeletons were still covered under CITES. However, CITES says nothing about how those skeletons are collected. Live or dead does not matter unless there is a specific regulation of the country of origin. Our feelings are irrelevant to the legality if the country of origin has not outlawed the practice. Fact is, many of those counties exporting dried and bleached skeletons would be just as likely (and probably do) dredge up reefs to make cement for construction (it's common practice in tropical countries). So are such practices sad, upsetting to us, and probably bad for the environment, yes. Are they illegal, no.
My guess is they do in fact have permits as it's well, extremelly hard to get that stuff through with out them. The curio trade is larger then the aquarium trade in terms of what they harvest. We as an industry get lumped in with them though so any attacks on them will unfortunately play out on us as well. Shut them down, expect them same for us. sad but true.
Yeah probably right. I did end my rant by mentioning our consumption problem. I like your analogy and RETRACT my statement. Fanatical groups aside we should get involved in our own capacity as an organized group of Reef-keepers. It is difficult to explain to any conservationist group or animal rights group that what we really strive for as Reef-keepers is a simulation of a natural sustainable reef. The never ending expensive quest for the perfect equipment to capture the properties of NSW is a testament to that end. I mean I think we all want a smokin tank with healthy beautiful marine life. Our defense of the captive reef falls short when thousands of people who take on the endeavor fail miserably and kill so many animals which for the most part are wild animals. On top of that the notion reef- keeping fuels the corrupted collection side of our passion isn't helping our case. That passion for me BTW is not a hobby so I don't use that word and frankly our captive reef's are slowly but surely becoming a custodian of so many animals which are fast becoming endangered in our oceans. Aquaculture is becoming, although slowly, the norm rather than the exception and that is a great great thing. I know here on RC we do try to push husbandry and biology and ask all newbies research and learn and take their time to get an education before they kill everything they try to keep the first year or two.....Killing marine life the first year should not be some sort of right of passage or a "learning experience". That said I thought long and hard about your comments and I agree with you! .........more regulation is never an issue when laws in place are not enforced effectively and unfortunately most reefs are located in 3 world countries where basically cash is king and anything goes........my final thought is really getting the message out about the condition of our reefs and that awareness needs to be talked about all the time....Thanks for your insight it's greatly appreciated......... just saying.Honestly those are the worst of the worst ideas. Those are the same people that want to shut this hobby down completely, and that's like coating yourself in honey and going "now if I could only find a pit filled with fire ants and bees to clean this stuff off".
There's already plenty of regulations in effect, and I'm fairly certain you can't take corals out of the water and kill them for export. To give you an idea, you can't even export the dried shells of maxima clams outside the Indo Pacific without permits, and they don't just hand those out. The permits for dead or live corals are the same, if these guys don't have them or are doing something out of line they're going to pay, you just have to contact the right authorities. It would be a lot easier if someone could just take the time and find the right email address for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Department Office that handles these things so that we can all bomb them with emails.
If you see someone speeding you don't go contacting groups that want to make sure no one's allowed to drive or want to lower the speed limit to 25mph, you call the cops and go "hey, that dude's speeding". That's what regulations and the people who enforce them are there for![]()
Although most of those colonies shown would be considered large in the hobby, only half a dozen of them would be large out on the reef. Almost all of the rest are young colonies, probably less than two years old. Most of them would have likely died before getting much bigger and they'll quickly be replaced as long as the reef is in decent shape. Even the largest ones are probably no more than a decade old and removing them in small numbers shouldn't have a major impact on coral cover.It is sad though to see those large sps colonies harvested and bleached for collection.
The fact that their meat and shells are in such high demand is also the main reason they're aquacultured so widely around the Indo-Pacific and they haven't been driven to extinction.Weather or not they are collected for food the Gigas clams are close to being endangered and collecting them for food is the main reason.
I'm sure some of their shells are wild collected, but I would almost guarantee that the majority of them are farmed. There's a cheap, steady supply of farmed clam shells, so there's little reason to collect them from the wild. The supply of the largest shells is more scarce, but even the largest shells they sell would only take about 5 yrs to grow out from seed stock. Farms do grow a few of them to those sizes.I dont think these clams are farmed. They are huge and the time it would take for these to grow would be huge.