Which wild caught fish have the least impact on our oceans?
- Thread starter Reeferon
- Start date
Reeferon,
you are in FL man, go down to the keys and take as many lion fish as you want. They are a invasive species.
There is no shortage of damsels...I would like to see some comprehensive studies and exactly how much collection has nuked native fish populations. Its got to be pretty insignificant compared to habitat destruction caused via pollution and commercial fishing methods. There are a large amount of variables at play so making broad statements that collection is bad is ridiculous. There are certain cases where the effects are dramatic like with mandarins and cardinalfish but to apply a few cases to all...
you are in FL man, go down to the keys and take as many lion fish as you want. They are a invasive species.
There is no shortage of damsels...I would like to see some comprehensive studies and exactly how much collection has nuked native fish populations. Its got to be pretty insignificant compared to habitat destruction caused via pollution and commercial fishing methods. There are a large amount of variables at play so making broad statements that collection is bad is ridiculous. There are certain cases where the effects are dramatic like with mandarins and cardinalfish but to apply a few cases to all...
Beaun
It's pronounced Bone
I would be more concerned with where it is collected. Many collections in the phillipines have very long supply chains and they have terrible survivorship. While collections from the caribbean, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Hawaii, and Australia have much shorter supply chains and much better survival. It's better if they only have to collect the fish they are going to sell, rather than 10 fish, just to get 1 to the dealers.
Kemo484
New member
Reeferon,
you are in FL man, go down to the keys and take as many lion fish as you want. They are a invasive species.
+1 Take some for your tank and a few for supper. I hear they're good eating.
Financial Panth
New member
aoc230
Aoc230
what!!!!
cortez marine
In Memoriam
1. I think the premise of the original post is off base.
It assumes that there is something wrong with wildcaught fishes per se.
2. Then there is another premise that the small list of captive bred fish are somehow an antidote to negative reef impacts.
Both of these unexamined assumptions need to be re-examined as they mislead people of good intention.
First;
Villages that stop collecting tropical fishes do not stop extracting sealife. Who on earth is so naive to think that commercial fish collectors would have less impact on the reef if they stopped collecting wild tropicals? They assuredly pause for perhaps a single day....and go spear parrotfish, snappers, large angelfish, lobster, shellfish, tuna, poach turtles and kill anything the local markets may want to feed nearby cities.
I know for a fact that when 6 collectors were stopped from collecting "buckets " of tropical fishes in Loreto Baja California Mexico for example that they filled 3 ton ice trucks with dead fish meat per week.
The trade off was on the order of 1000:1 and the food fish were mostly predator fishes which were even more environmentally expensive then the largely omniverous tropicals.
Far, far more damage was done to the areas reef fish populations by the stopping of tropical fish collecting. The reciept books of the ice truck fish buyers contained a yearly record from these same fishers and when juxtaposed to their tropical fish catch, the difference was shocking. A good study could be made with this written record to educate the well meaning outsiders who got the tropicals banned.
The silly folks who stopped the 6 collectors killed off tons of other marinelife instead....O
Local intelligence finds the notion of boycotting wildcaught tropical fish to lessen impacts on the reefs absurd. Only foreigners and city people imagine that newly laid-off fish collectors will just sit down and starve w/ their families. Fishing and diving is what they know...and what they will continue to do no matter what.
Second;
The majority of fish that are cultivated happen to be in two categories that lessen the good you may imagine occurs.
1. Aquacultured fishes tend to be the easily recruiting, fast growing species that are common and recover fast on the reef anyway....ie, gobies, clownfishes, pseudochromis.
Blue tangs, butterflies, clown triggers, blueface angels, coral beauties etc. are not cultured...nor are the majority of aquarium classics that drive the trade.
2. Clownfish culture...if accompanied by increased demand for wild anemones creates a net negative. It is the abundance of wild anemones that determine clownfish populations. If you take wild anemones to accomodate tank raised clownfish you ruin the wild populations of clownfish in the process anyway.
In both cases, the fisherfolk are left out and they will continue to work the reefs.
Knee jerk, simplistic remedies may soothe the conscience a bit but it helps the reef not at all.
Putting all the fish collectors out of work will kill more marinelife then you care to count and acting like cultured fishes is at this time in anywhere near a realistic alternative is misleading.
The real solutions have to do with fostering cleaner, more sustainable collecting methods, not harming habitat w/ poisons and crowbars and weaning the trade off cyanide fishing.
Next to these issues that few are willing to tackle, the little token stuff pales by comparison. But, fake and partial remedies may make some feel they have "done something"...no matter how far from what really needs to be done it may be.
Steve
It assumes that there is something wrong with wildcaught fishes per se.
2. Then there is another premise that the small list of captive bred fish are somehow an antidote to negative reef impacts.
Both of these unexamined assumptions need to be re-examined as they mislead people of good intention.
First;
Villages that stop collecting tropical fishes do not stop extracting sealife. Who on earth is so naive to think that commercial fish collectors would have less impact on the reef if they stopped collecting wild tropicals? They assuredly pause for perhaps a single day....and go spear parrotfish, snappers, large angelfish, lobster, shellfish, tuna, poach turtles and kill anything the local markets may want to feed nearby cities.
I know for a fact that when 6 collectors were stopped from collecting "buckets " of tropical fishes in Loreto Baja California Mexico for example that they filled 3 ton ice trucks with dead fish meat per week.
The trade off was on the order of 1000:1 and the food fish were mostly predator fishes which were even more environmentally expensive then the largely omniverous tropicals.
Far, far more damage was done to the areas reef fish populations by the stopping of tropical fish collecting. The reciept books of the ice truck fish buyers contained a yearly record from these same fishers and when juxtaposed to their tropical fish catch, the difference was shocking. A good study could be made with this written record to educate the well meaning outsiders who got the tropicals banned.
The silly folks who stopped the 6 collectors killed off tons of other marinelife instead....O
Local intelligence finds the notion of boycotting wildcaught tropical fish to lessen impacts on the reefs absurd. Only foreigners and city people imagine that newly laid-off fish collectors will just sit down and starve w/ their families. Fishing and diving is what they know...and what they will continue to do no matter what.
Second;
The majority of fish that are cultivated happen to be in two categories that lessen the good you may imagine occurs.
1. Aquacultured fishes tend to be the easily recruiting, fast growing species that are common and recover fast on the reef anyway....ie, gobies, clownfishes, pseudochromis.
Blue tangs, butterflies, clown triggers, blueface angels, coral beauties etc. are not cultured...nor are the majority of aquarium classics that drive the trade.
2. Clownfish culture...if accompanied by increased demand for wild anemones creates a net negative. It is the abundance of wild anemones that determine clownfish populations. If you take wild anemones to accomodate tank raised clownfish you ruin the wild populations of clownfish in the process anyway.
In both cases, the fisherfolk are left out and they will continue to work the reefs.
Knee jerk, simplistic remedies may soothe the conscience a bit but it helps the reef not at all.
Putting all the fish collectors out of work will kill more marinelife then you care to count and acting like cultured fishes is at this time in anywhere near a realistic alternative is misleading.
The real solutions have to do with fostering cleaner, more sustainable collecting methods, not harming habitat w/ poisons and crowbars and weaning the trade off cyanide fishing.
Next to these issues that few are willing to tackle, the little token stuff pales by comparison. But, fake and partial remedies may make some feel they have "done something"...no matter how far from what really needs to be done it may be.
Steve
Similar threads
