The fact that these animals rarely seem to exhibit anything close to the natural crepuscular activity cycle that we see in the wild is disturbing. This may be due to the lack of appropriate light on-off cycles in the aquarium and/or suitable substrate for burrowing. I worry that constant exposure places undue stress on these secretive octopus
I would be interested to know details of the natural crepuscular cycle so I can compare them to what I have observed in aquaria. Hopefully, you have been keeping up on the burrowing I have been writing about on TONMO. The literature says they are active at dawn and dusk, but doesn't go into greater detail. Light on/off cycles and twilight/moonlight/daylight lighting has become very easy to mimic and manipulate in the last few years.
Thales and I have a fundamental disagreement concerning the importation and maintenance of these animals which has been aired a sufficient number of times. From what you wrote, you are well aware of those arguments and have chosen to come down on the "What the hell, what will one more octopus matter? Besides, its already been collected." side.
Just to be clear, I am not a proponent of the 'what the hell, what will one more octopus matter? Besides, its already been collected' position regarding these animals. My thoughts are necessarily more complicated than that due to the nature of the industry.
I don't think these animals should be collected, but I don't believe that that is going to happen anytime soon. I don't think boycotting an animal has any effect. So, I am left trying to figure out a useful way to deal with the animals that are collected for potential captive breeding purposes without encouraging more collection.
I'm beginning to agree that efforts to curtail the importation of zebra octopuses through public education is a very steep uphill battle that may take too long to protect these animals from over collection.
I think public education can have little to no effect on importation and collection because the retail side of the industry has essentially no connection to the collecting side.
IMO, asking people to not buy or talk about these animals in the trade only leads to more of them being collected and more of them being impulse bought. I think honest education and talk about the animals will lead to people not 'trying' them, much in the same way that Morish Idols aren't collected in the numbers they once were. However, not knowing the numbers of zebras in the wild, not knowing how environmental concerns are impacting those populations, and no knowing how collecting is impacting those populations is very much cause for concern.
It may be the time to place more effort into export and import regulation.
This is the only avenue that has ever, AFAIK, had any results regarding curtailing the collection of a particular animal.
I do think it needs to be on the side of the country of origin because if you stop the importation of zebras into the US, they can easily be shipped to different countries that don't care. At the same time, zebra occys range is very large and many countries would need to be in line for regulation to really have an effect - in other words, if Indo says no zebra collection they may still be collected in PI or eventually PNG (ech).
That effort may best be aided by enlisting the diving and tourist industries. A few aquarists saying "let me have mine" and forking over a few hundred dollars a pop can potentially fuel some demand for export, but the local dive organizations in Indonesia and the Philippines, supported by environmentally aware tourists who want of observe and photograph these animals have the potential to exert a lot more pressure.
It can work, but in reality such pressure usually results in some off limits collection areas being established. This is a good thing, but TMK it doesn't/hasen't result/resulted in the cessation of collection.
The people doing the collecting and the exporting are generating money and the local governments are very concerned about keeping them making money. In general, the issue isn't collection, its responsible, sustainable collection. When the collectors understand that the reefs they collect from are limited resources rather than like infinitely supplied supermarkets, they collectors tend to make sure their reefs are taken care of.
The main problem in the industry is that its based on volume. I think a better overall solution would be to shift the industry away from collecting 30 so that 5-10 might survive but are inexpensive to collecting 5 so that 5 survive but are more expensive.
Of course, 'eco toruism' has a plethora of significant negative environmental impacts (dredging local reefs for building materials, sewage, litter, poor diving practices, jet travel, etc) that need to be kept in mind as well.
