Reefkeeping is NOT under attack

[PIPSTER]

There isn't ONE thing about this hobby, or the keeping of captive corals/inverts/fish, that isn't destructive to the natural habitat of the above. Not. One. Thing.

Given the extremely precarious state of reefs worldwide, and the pressure on them that mounts DAILY, ANY hobby or industry that removes item one from these environments is something that needs to be stopped immediately.

Just the act of keeping corals at home helps to kill corals in the wild. Compounding the damage by collection is something we can no longer 'afford' to do.

Any pretense that anyone involved in this hobby is doing anything 'conservation oriented' is ludicrous. The opposite is true.

:lolspin: Was that a joke? :hammer:

Surely, you're just trying to keep us agitated. No peace\rest for the...:uzi:
:crazy1: :wildone:

Allow me to put something of value in that ruined brain of yours.

Here is an angel fish eating a coral. Now, Mr. Fables, is it really better if the angel eats the coral, or I take it home and propagate it 10 times over? In the first scenario the angel eats the coral, and at the end of the day, or several feedings, there is a healthy angel fish and no coral left there. In the second scenario, there is still a healthy happy angel fish because there's other coral out there for it to eat, believe it or not, but I get to have a wonderful sponge in my tank, which I can choose to do with what I want, which may include allowing it to grow and multiply, difficulties aside.

You are not anymore interested in "conserving reefs" than the NOAA. You are extremely interested in telling me what I can't do or own, which is what ticks us off :angryfire:

Oh, wait...you didn't even register what I said, so let me give you another example...

How shall we save this starfish? Hmmmm...maybe if I collect it before these pesky harlequin eat it? What? The shrimp will starve? You mean there isn't other starfish out there? Ok, I'll just find a few more starfish, take the shrimp home for good measure and start a shrimp\starfish farm. At the end of 5 years, I'll be producing 20-30 both starfish and shrimp a month to sell to others. Or I can leave the one starfish alone...to live until the end of that day.
I think you would like living in North Korea. There, you are considered the state's property, and there's no such thing as private property, everyone is told what to do in all aspects of life. :blown:


But seriously, about this thread, nobody has the ability to show that we have to give specific "scientific" data that somehow shows how possession or trade of domestically raised coral has any correlation to wild collection. Again, (blue in the face here) comments can have relevancy to whether or not the secretary decides to add restrictions to possession or trade. There isn't any science we can include in these said type of comments, all we can point out, as hobbyists, is banning Live Aquaria from selling any acros or frogspawn that resemble any coral on the list that they aquaculture domestically has absolutely nothing to do with further wild collection protections.

 

[Despairodyne]

Leonard said: We're talking about a tiny handful of corals that anyone ever sees in this hobby.

So I'll be able to purchase any of the corals I see in the TOTMs?

 

[Despairodyne]

Leonard said: Truth be told, there is very little chance any hobbyist will be prosecuted for violating coral trade prohibitions.

Context sensitive enforcement of laws is an issue that goes far beyond this discussion. Very little chance of being prosecuted for a felony is little consolation if you are.

 

[JPMagyar]

Leonard said: We're talking about a tiny handful of corals that anyone ever sees in this hobby.

So I'll be able to purchase any of the corals I see in the TOTMs?

Gosh, sorry mister Despair. I can't sell you a piece of my basketball sized Euphyllia paradivisa. Looks like I'll just have to break it up and throw it away. I don't want to take the 1 in a million chance of being convicted of a felony

 

[Leonard]

Gosh, sorry mister Despair. I can't sell you a piece of my basketball sized Euphyllia paradivisa. Looks like I'll just have to break it up and throw it away. I don't want to take the 1 in a million chance of being convicted of a felony

ESA only governs interstate and international trade. If they determine additional protective regulations are warranted, trade your frogspawn locally if you're really worried about USFWS hunting you down sending a couple of frags across state lines. BTW: Your local police isn't going to give a flying you-know-what. Men in blue aren't going to bust down anyone's door to enforce ESA policies.

 

[JPMagyar]

ESA only governs interstate and international trade. If they determine additional protective regulations are warranted, trade your frogspawn locally if you're really worried about USFWS hunting you down sending a couple of frags across state lines. BTW: Your local police isn't going to give a flying you-know-what. Men in blue aren't going to bust down anyone's door to enforce ESA policies.

And, Despair lives in Rhodes Island and I live in New York so I can't even GIVE away my coral IF the NMFS imposes the strictest regulations.

 

[CStrickland]

IF the NMFS imposes the strictest regulations.

Is there any indication that they will?

 

[asylumdown]

A no take provision is what it is. They'll either apply one or they won't, and whether they do is what they're considering right now, from what I understand.

The fact that these species have been listed as threatened is in itself an indication that they may.

 

[asylumdown]

ESA only governs interstate and international trade. If they determine additional protective regulations are warranted, trade your frogspawn locally if you're really worried about USFWS hunting you down sending a couple of frags across state lines. BTW: Your local police isn't going to give a flying you-know-what. Men in blue aren't going to bust down anyone's door to enforce ESA policies.

This is a pretty short sighted view if you're looking at the hobby as a whole. If it becomes illegal to sell or propagate these animals it's only a matter of time before they disappear from the US altogether. The police might not care about joe schmoe hobbyist, but there's not a police PR person in the country who wouldn't love to tweet about carting the evil fish store owner who was illicitly trading in poor, endangered corals off to face his comeuppance. Their PR people and the news outlets that report on it will of course conveniently forget to mention that just one year prior, that "threatened" coral was the most common inhabitant of North American tanks and has a native range that rivals that of dandelions in terms of global distribution, or that the 'threatened' coral might actually have been misidentified and not been legally protected at all.

They will disappear from the commercial mariculture and supply chain, and they'll disappear from the LFS. You might be able to get your hands on a E. paradavisa if you happen to 'know a guy' for a few years after they're listed, but without the LFS and the ability to legally move them across state lines their "range" in North America will be hopelessly fragmented, leading to local extirpations, and eventually extinction in captivity.

Also, because the LFS owners operate at razor thin margins as it is, the vast majority likely can't risk the costs and potential criminal charges associated with the bureaucratic nightmare and resulting DOA inventory from shipments held by fish and wildlife officers who couldn't care less about the difference between an A. valida and an A. abrotanoides. They're also held pretty much personally responsible if someone at Walt Smith in Fiji messes up and mislabels what's in the box, so we're really only one r-builders article about an LFS losing their business, life savings, and potentially their freedom due to an unfairly applied trafficking charge away from the disappearance of the entire Acropora and Euphyllia genera from the American market as well.

Will Walt Smith and all the facilities like them survive the loss of their biggest market? Maybe. Maybe we'll switch to less desirable species and the hobby will just adapt until the next round of scientifically questionable, legislatively toothless listings comes around.

The fact that I might personally be able to keep what I already have today doesn't mean in 10 years these species won't still be extinct in captivity.

 

[Leonard]

My view is shortsighted because I'm only working with what's before me. You can play the slippery slope game ad infinitum, but I won't partake.

Let's just do what we can (support research and supply conservation data) and leave the doom and gloom on the back burner. Everything else to me is just a big red herring.

 

[asylumdown]

The maximum penalty for 'trafficking' in protected species is $50,000 and a year in jail. Penalty is assessed per number of violations, which can be interpreted by a F&W officer to include every frag of protected coral that was put in the box under the wrong label. If such a shipment were to arrive with a fish store's name on it, the onus would be on the person receiving it to prove that they did not intend to traffic those species, at their own expense.

My LFS is lucky if half the things he puts on the order form show up, the people packing these boxes on the other side sometimes seem to know less about coral taxonomy than I do.

You call it a red herring. I call it the glaringly obvious and inevitable consequence of a no-take provision being applied to the 8 pacific acros that were listed. Yes, this has nothing to do with the environmental status of said species, it's just what the consequence of the listing will be. Sadly, the science the NOAA itself used to list these species strongly suggests that it will be the only consequence of the listing.

Anyway it's all very depressing. All I can do from Canada is donate to PIJAC and hope for the best.