Hello Anthony.
Most everything harvested here is for the domestic market, these are popular, hardy and cheap corals. (They are in the same price category as Doscosoma colonies and Zooanthus mats.)
I presume that the ones finding their way into the US are by-catch (can I use that terminology for corals?) when collecting other similar LPS. They have a wide distribution as you state. Maybe the shippers are not interested in checking through their entire shipment for one odd coral. I don't know.
As far as I am aware no corals are exported from Japan on a regular basis. It is illegal to collect in may areas. It is also not legal, as my good friend BurnTom has already said, to export these Acans to the US. If it were, given the price Reefkeepers in the US are willing to pay for these corals, the owner of my LFS would have shipped his entire stock in the blink of an eye and now be sunning himself on a tropical island drinking cocktails on the proceeds.
I was amused to see the ebay seller posting the Acan as a very rare colour morph (maybe it is in the US,but...). That is one of the two standard colour patterns here, red/pink/orange and another colour or various shades of metallic green. There are rarer ones around here, but they do not go for much more.
BTW recently purchased you coral prop book. What a mine of info, given me many ideas for my retirement (still 30 years or so away, but doesn't hurt to plan ahead!).
Keep up the good work.
Matt
