Cyanide article

[cortez marine]

center of the beast

center of the beast

Fred,
Indonesia [ including Bali] and the Philippines represent nearly all the cyanide use for tropical fish in the world.

Go where the Marine Aquarium Council goes in S.E.Asia and you will find a cyanide fishing industry.
They don't train fisherman or solve the problem...but they do camp-follow it and SERVICE the issue.
They use it as a cash cow and derive salary and compensation for it.
Bali and the Philippines are the beast.
The rest are pretty clean....especially the countries already mentioned.
Steve

 

[cortez marine]

However,
There are clean operations in both countries that should not suffer for the sins of the guilty ones.
Steve

 

[EricG]

Steven: Thank you for writing this article and bringing attention to the problem of cyanide use in the capture of marine fish. I would like to offer several observations from a medical perspective.

1. Treatment: To treat humans exposed to cyanide we generally use sodium nitrite and sodium thiosulfate. I guessing that sodium nitrite is not a good candidate because we all know about N02 toxicity in marine fish. Sodium Thiosulfate may be a better prospect, as I believe that people already use sodium thiosulfate to detoxify chlorine. One uncertainty in all this is that in medicine, we dose these medications intravenously. I have no idea if the medication would be absorbed directly from the water. Methylene blue may also be a possibility, but it may have more of a theoretical risk of overdose. Again, methylene blue is dosed IV in humans, so I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know to what degree it may be absorbed. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m not sure if we need to detoxify cyanide because Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m not sure how long cyanide remains in the fishes tissue. If all or most of the cyanide has been metabolized or removed by the time it the fish reaches the consumer, there may be no indication for any further detoxification.

It would be very helpful to find out exactly how long it takes for the fish to clear all the cyanide from its body. If the cyanide is rapidly cleared, that is likely good for the fish. On the other hand, if cyanide is still present in the fishââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s tissue at the time that it is received by the consumer, then there may be an opportunity to test the fish for cyanide. I have read that there is some testing of fish at the country of origin, but I believe that they test an actual tissue sample. I have been wondering if it is useful to test the water that the fish is shipped in. I know that there are simple and cheap test strips for testing for the level of cyanide in ground water. It would be a great tool for concerned LFS staff to able to test the shipping water for cyanide and then be able to avoid suppliers that are shipping out ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œjuicedââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ fish. If we can test and know if the fish was exposed to cyanide, then by avoiding those suppliers, we could apply real economic pressure to discourage the further use of cyanide. If they canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t sell the fish, they will stop using cyanide.

2. Long term effects: I have no data at present to support this but my intuitive sense as physician tells me that there are likely negative long term effects. To understand the long-term effects one must understand a bit about how cyanide exerts its toxic effects on cells. Cyanide blocks the major pathway that cells use to generate energy. This results in cell death. It also results in a systemic acidosis within the fishââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s tissues. Higher metabolism tissues are most susceptible to damage from this sort of metabolic insult. In humans we usually find that the nervous, cardiac, renal, and gastrointestinal organs suffer the greatest. Some fish receive a lethal dose and die right on the reef, but the fish that survive the initial insult very likely have some degree of vital organ damage. Now take this weakened animal and put through the rigors of shipping and transport it is no wonder that we see such high mortality.

Eric

 

[cortez marine]

Eric,
Your post echos what I have heard from toxicologists from day one.
Tissue cell and therefore damage resulting in health damage after it percolates out of the system.
"Then bring on the rigors of shipping...."Thanks for your contribution.
Steve
PS. Actually there were a number of bogus pet-shop scientists who minimized its effect on fish health thru out the years of this debate. They would never speak up now though.

 

[Steven Pro]

Eric,

You bring up some very interesting points. As to the first one, I am somewhat torn. While it could be of great benefit to the industry and hobby to work on finding something to negate the effects of cyanide on fishes, the use of cyanide is so detrimental to the nearby corals that I don't think it would be a wise allocation of time and money.

As to your second point, I believe cyanide does do lasting damage to fishes that are exposed to it. I just wanted to point out in my article that belief does not equate to proof and that the proof is lacking at this point. But again, would it by a good investment of resources to find out if and exactly how cyanide damages a fish that survives the initial exposure?

 

[BrianPlankis]

Steven,

Good points. There is limited money in this hobby and the amount of resources it would take to do tissue analysis on fish (and the death of control fish) is just too much money that could be spent elsewhere.

Stopping the use of cyanide is the best solution. How to do that...I wish I knew!

Brian

 

[EricG]

I agree that we should not direct much effort toward post exposure treatment. I think that if we can somehow positively identify cyanide exposed fish and then shun those fish we could really place pressure on the industry to change. I would rather see research efforts directed toward testing rather than treatment.

Eric

 

[Steven Pro]

There have been people working on testing to determine is fish have been exposed to cyanide, but my undersanding is the results have been inconclusive. They just have not found a reliable test yet.

 

[BrianPlankis]

Just to add another .02,

I think it is a good start to have individuals that are informed shunning cyanide caught fish. However, I don't know if that will reduce demand enough to change the collector's practices.

This is one of the more information intense hobbies I've ever been involved in and I think getting the beginner hobbyists, LFS owners and wholesalers educated on cyanide AND creating incentives to sell cyanide free fish is the only way the current situation will change without some kind of legislation banning imports from certain regions.

I know when I first started this hobby back in 1999 I had no idea cyanide was used to catch fish. I don't think I discovered this until almost one year into the hobby. Maybe the information is more easily found (Thanks for the article Steven), but how many new hobbyists actually read articles before they go to the LFS and the LFS owner sells them a bunch of cyanide caught fish because there is little incentive for them not to?

While hobbyist clubs can work on promoting cyanide free fish to new members, to hopefully reduce the number of novice hobbyists being uninformed on the subject, I feel it comes down to creating incentives and educating the supply chain to get the end result we all want.

Brian

 

[cortez marine]

This issue has become a business all its own.
Its far cheaper to simply train divers with a fraction of the money allocated to deal with the problem.
However....the leadership in every group involved so far...[ 20 years!] spends the budgets to largely no acclaim and chooses to keep the focus on remedies and notions that frontload their perks, their involvement, their salaries, their inexperienced theories and their office bound remedies.
We choose to not solve this thing and always have.
Steve
Having trained 600 cyanide collectors before a stop was put to it by the NGO's I worked for in the early 80's and up to the early 90's...I know something of it.
Steve

 

[davidh202]

Hi Steven
I think the most important point you made was that it's really up to us to do our research! A little bit of knowledge goes a long way to avoiding a lot of mistakes and even then it's not always enough. It seems to me that everyone has a different opinion about everything. The controversies start off with "sand" and it doesn't end there. A lot of it is strickly based on personal experience. One person says this fish is "reef safe", another disagrees. It can get to be very confusing not to mention all the other worrys about how the fish was collected, traveled and cared for by the time it makes its way into your local fish store!
I just wish you hadn't suggested that it's possible to put a deposit on a fish and have the store hold it for a week or so. (You're not the first to say this) We have about a half dozen or so stores within our area and their main goal is to sell the fish ASAP! (in other words, before it dies on them!) Bad retail stores, unscrupulous dealers, well, I think you were overly nice in your article! And the problems are not just limited to fish. It seems that when in doubt about the specific species of Coral, just give it a common name or add "sp"! Gorgonia sp., am I the only one who finds this practice annoying? I can't understand those individuals who don't take the time to read up or do their homework. But more importantly, I don't understand a business that is only interested in selling something for the sake of selling something! Kim