Our hobby is in Jeopardy!! PLEASE READ!

[johnnybv]

This hit the airwaves today, it will impact our hobby and sustainability in a big way!

 

Attention Everyone !!!                Call-to-Action Link

http://files.constantcontact.com/43e9683b501/4394ac06-527f-4222-963d-472eac0dca3f.pdf

 

SB 1240 has now passed conference and is on the way to the AG’s office and finally the governor for signing.

The bill states that there will be no more new permits issued. This will basically “sunset” our industry within 10 years, unless

we can stop it !! 

Snorkel Bob and his activists friends have convinced or legislature that the tropical fish industry is depleting Hawaii’s resources-

which couldn’t be further from the truth !! Science done within the island chain deems collection miniscule and definitely sustainable !!!

We need everyone to step up and voice their opposition. They cannot win this battle  !! 

 

Please contact the governor’s office and tell him to please VETO the bill .

 

You can contact him via both email and calling !!!

Phone: (808) 586-0034 (Best !!!)

Email: governor@hawaii.gov

PLEASE, We need everyone’s support !!!!

[Origami]

I don't know much about Hawaii's legislative process, but here's the Bill's history:

 

https://legiscan.com/HI/bill/SB1240/2017

 

From the looks of things, it looks like it's being reported out of a joint committee and still has to be voted on by both houses of their legislature. If successful there, it probably would head to the Governor for signature.

 

It's clearly a partisan bill with all sponsors and cosponsors from the same party. Not sure how this will fare in the full state legislature. But they're heavily Democratic (9:1 ratio) with Democrat governor. Not good odds (for the aquarium industry).

 

I do wonder why Hawaii lawmakers would give us the time of day in this matter.

 

Thanks for the heads up, John. At the least, this will make progress in captive breeding (of species endemic to Hawaii, and all around) even more important. Coincidentally, I'm exchanging emails with marine breeder, Karen Brittain, on this very topic and how we might help with her research efforts.

 

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[gmerek2]

I feel bad for snorkel bob. He has no common sense. Hawaii is like 1200 miles long there is no way our 6 foot fish tanks are causing an issue lol. It's all the darn beaches, snorkelers, boats tearing up the reefs. Oh and especially sunscreen the people wear. Maybe Hawaii should consider shuttting down tourism? We definitely don't need to get the government to disable his septic tank there is no way his runoff from his property and business is affecting fish

Edited May 3, 2017 by gmerek2

[Bruleyii]

I feel bad for snorkel bob. He has no common sense. Hawaii is like 1200 miles long there is no way our 6 foot fish tanks are causing an issue lol. It's all the darn beaches, snorkelers, boats tearing up the reefs. Oh and especially sunscreen the people wear. Maybe Hawaii should consider shuttting down tourism? We definitely don't need to get the government to disable his septic tank there is no way his runoff from his property and business is affecting fish

+1

[mogurnda]

I feel bad for everyone.

 

I would be interested to know the actual numbers for the impact of collection for the hobby, rather than opinions.  There was a guy (John Brant?) from NOAA who has spoken for us a few times about the surprising numbers of fish collected for the hobby.  As the despair.com poster says, "a single raindrop doesn't think it is part of the flood."

 

Hawaii has one of the most sustainable fisheries for pet fishies, so it is a shame they are being penalized.  Nonetheless, despite efforts to verify supply chains for marine ornamentals elsewhere, it still has gone nowhere.  As far as I know retailers still have no way of verifying that most of the fish they sell are collected in a sustainable manner.  John, how do you know that the fish you sell are harvested and transported in a way that does not damage reefs and minimizes mortality? 

 

As hobbyists, we have fallen pretty flat.  It blows me away that someone will choose a wild-caught over a captive reared fish to save a few bucks, but that is what people seem to do.  Captive-bred mandarins have disappeared because hobbyists thought they were too pricey, despite the advantages in terms of husbandry and the environment.  I drove an hour to BRK specifically to buy a pair of CB mandarins, so yes, I am willing to put my money (and more importantly, my time) where my mouth is.

 

I find the argument "other things are worse, so we should not blame ourselves" to be unsatisifying.  If your action contributes to a problem, then you should do what you can to reduce your impact.  Reefs around the world are suffering from bleaching, unsustainable fishing for food, pollution, you name it.  Taking fish for the pet trade has an impact, as well.  On top of that, as reefs continue to degrade, it will be increasingly difficult and expensive to import fish for our tanks.  It looks as though more species can be reared in tanks, and we should support that industry as much as we can.  

 

Law or no, the pet fish collection industry will change.  Rather than put our fingers in our ears, maybe it is time to think hard about what the future will look like for the hobby.

[Origami]

... Captive-bred mandarins have disappeared because hobbyists thought they were too pricey, despite the advantages in terms of husbandry and the environment.

 

I was reading about this again just yesterday as I was researching some of Karen Brittain's efforts with Marine Breeding. The loss of ORA's sourcing of CB mandarins was a true loss with broad impact as it basically shuts the door to captive breeding advancements of many more difficult to breed but popular (i.e. low cost) species. If the hobby supported CB mandarins better, there would have been economic incentive to cultivate other species. Over time, there'd be more success,  higher yields and lower prices. Some time ago, Matt Pederson spoke at a WAMAS meeting and warned that our hobby, without successful transition to sourcing stock from captive breeding programs, was subject to being choked out legislatively. This is a threat that we face every year from Hawaii. We've become complacent because its become commonplace for us to hear about it. But, someday, it will probably come to pass. And that someday may be today.

 

Well, the end result (if it comes to this) is that you'll see supplies of certain fish dwindle. Prices will go up. Maybe then there'll be more economic incentive to dust off those old breeding protocols and deliver more captive bred species into the supply chain. 

 

The thing that I find interesting in the language of the proposed legislation (that John linked to above) is that part about DLNR defining "sustainability" and tying that to the need for evidence that sustainability does, in fact, exist across Hawaii's reefs, and with providing a feedback (regulating) mechanism (licensing and quotas) to ensure that sustainability is being achieved. On the face of it, it would seem that these are not unreasonable policy objectives. The key will be in the implementation and whether it'll be misused to snuff out collection altogether.

[johnnybv]

I believe that as hobbyists we need to understand what is going on here.  There is a need for some control over what is being taken, some limits, and clarification of certain terms like "sustainability".  This action is clearly just shooting a shot gun and trying to shut down operations in general, instead of a solution to promote captive breeding.  As far as how do I know that my fish are collected in a accepted manner?  All I have to go on is the same thing everyone else has to go on, someones word.  Unless you are on that dive boat and collecting yourself in an approved manner you have no idea.  Facilities like ORA and Sustainable aquatics just to name a few, have spent millions in the breeding of many species, and some, like the mandarins were very difficult.  Allowing this bill to be passed without actually having a solution like funding sustainability operations is careless and will not produce the desired result.  It is just important for everyone to understand what is going on, so when a yellow tang costs $300 you know why.

John

[customaquar]

I think it was late 90's when I was working on the Marine Aquarium Council project. We did a tour of the Philippines and stopped in Hawaii on the way back. We visited a few collector operations and heard an interesting story. One of the companies which still operates out of LA had a collection operation on Kona. Imagine a highway running along the sea with the shoulders of that highway being black volcanic lava. This collectors crew had been out collecting yellow tangs and on the way back to the facility suffered a vehicle breakdown. There were a lot of yellow tangs in their "container". These guys somehow got back to the facility and grabbed another vehicle. When they got back to the broken down vehicle they found all of the fish to be dead. So they dumped a lot of dead yellow tangs onto the side of the road. Bright yellow on black. Really pissed off a lot of the islanders. That was then. Fish collecting was unpopular then and is now. Namely because the world is full of aquarists and the demand is high. Responsibility has to be placed somewhere.

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Thanks, BRK for posting this.  I seems that the amended version of the bill (original was fairly innocuous), but the final one bans new permits or transfers) would be a victory for the anti-aquarium folks there if the governor signs it.   

 

Many people (I don't know what percentage, but enough to start a political movement.  Ref: the Collective Action theory we were subject to in PolySci101) in Kona (and fellow travelers elsewhere on the islands) have a shocking level of sanctimonius extremist rage against fish collecting and aquaria in general**.  

 

I think the Hawaii Civil Beat sums it up fairly well:

http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/04/lawmakers-may-put-brakes-on-hawaiis-aquarium-fish-industry/

 

That being said, I'm sympathetic to the fact that (as I understand it) most of the Yellow tangs in the worldwide aquarium trade are from Kona, collection numbers have gone up a lot year on year, to the order of hundreds of thousands a year.  And that I'm sure most of those collected die in the process -> they go, at minimum, from collector, to holding tank in Kona, to holding tank in Honolulu, to holding tank in large distributor in LA, to Petco/LFS, to purchaser (and who knows how well the purchaser can take care of the tang.  Even if s/he abides by the Tang Police )  

 

IMO, the situation on the island is conflict between classes (the Humane Society + rich activists + tour operators vs. generally lower class, generally longer term residents of varied ethnicities employed in aquarium collection) and industries (collectors vs. snorkel/scuba tour operators looking to fix blame when days are bad).  The sanctimoniusness means no side really wants to work together, and the aquarium collection industry IMO is not big enough to withstand a strong assault.  

 

Coral/LR collecting went the same way - hard corals are illegal to own in any form there (note that black corals are very rare at scuba depths, but there's no ban, presumably because of the jewelry industry.  Any no one cares about deep water gorgonians anyway).  Hobbyist scale fragging and mariclture of the already limited array of Hawaiian corals won't harm "Hawaii's Reefs".  In fact, IMO it would build appreciation, since there'd be at least some people besides scientists who understand local corals.   

 

Anyway, Kona is the hotspot I think for global anti-aquarium extremism and it seems to me that they're on the cusp of a major local victory.   Most people won't care, except for the declining number of fish owners in Hawaii (who will inevitably be inconvienienced) and the collection businesses.  

 

 

 

** Snorkel Bob's op-ed in the Huffington post, and his general comments on aquaria, are a good examples of the extreme, black or white part of the movement.  i.e. anyone who does not agree with him is evil and a shill for an Evil MultiBazillion Dollar Industry (while ignoring the fact that tourism and development are unavoidably the worst offenders against Hawaii's reefs).  And I do think he's a true believer, not just putting out rhetoic to advance some financial or political gain 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-campaign-to-end-the-aquarium-trade-in-hawaii-surges_us_58a38fcce4b0e172783aa1ef

[Incredible Corals]

I feel worse for all the divers and people relying on the income from fisheries.  I would think many of them have been doing this their entire lives and these fisheries support entire communities.