MAC has "revised" it's DOA policy

[MaryHM]

I found the official MAC DOA revision policy.

http://macweb.inets.com/docs/1/applicat ... oSheet.PDF

Although the mortality rates are more in line than they were before, all of the complicated "losing/regaining MAC certification" requirements are quite ridiculous.

If the organisms are held
for 3 days, and no further mortality is recorded, the species batch will regain its MAC Certified
status. If these organisms are held for another 2 days (i.e. a total of 5 days) they will remain as
MAC Certified until sold. If there is mortality during either of these holding periods, the process of
regaining MAC Certified status for the species batch by holding organisms (as described above)
may be started again.

So not only do you have to keep every batch of MAC certified species separately both physically and with paperwork, now you have to keep track of what is certified, what has lost certification, what is in the process of holding to be recertified, what is recertified, etc.... UGH.

Here's an idea. TRAIN THE FREAKIN' DIVERS, WORK TOWARD ELIMINATING THE CYANIDE PROBLEM AND CORRECTING POOR HANDLING ISSUES. MAKE SURE THAT COLLECTION AREAS ARE PROPERLY MANAGED. DO THOSE THINGS AND EVERYTHING ELSE WILL FALL IN TO PLACE!! There is absolutely no reason to track every single animal that leaves the reef. But I guess actual training and physically correcting the problems requires actually manual labor and not paperwork, and everyone over at MAC seems to be much more concerned with how things look on paper than how they relate to reality. :roll:

If they would ever get this trainwreck of a program on the right track I would support them with the same fervor I used to- even more!! However, until then I remain unimpressed, skeptical, and frustrated.

 

[flameangel1]

This is so ridiculous !!!!
What has this "holding 3 days-5 days-or restarting the 3 to 5 day thing- have to do with HOW these animals are caught and who is going to be counting these holding days to watch the dealers so no one cheats ???
And guaranteed, NO ONE is going to have the patience to put up with that paperwork and separating all these different batches of animals , for very long.
Does MAC have a clue how many tanks/ how much room, we will need to follow their regulations???
And for what ??? To say that we have MAC certified fish??? Big deal !!!!

No thanks-- my customers know what I have and how I take care of them-that is plenty good enough for them and ME !!!!!!

 

[clarionreef]

Judy,
But don't you see.. You can use the certificate to mask and cover the rest of your fish as well! Not in any honest accounting but no customer is going to be sharing your office for 30 minutes or so to verify and clarify batches, dates and even species. Customers will take an average of 22 seconds to scan you certification certificate on the wall and nod the head and start picking fishes...with a clear conscience.
Its a "win-win" situation without any chance to be real. Then again, maybe its not supposed to be. The idea is to make it palatable for the mass public and as the creaters of this scheme get deeper into the implementation of it, they'll have to keep "dumbing it down" and "moving the marker" to make sure it meets with widespread approval.
Changing the way the trade misbehaves out on the reefs and making it fit a sustainable method of operation was the idea, remember? Increasingly you will see efforts to accomodate the mass regardless of the fact that it will alienate the sincere and true believers.
Its already happened on the field program where the authentic trainings and methodologies were sacrificed to make field reports and certifications more quickly possible and you will also see the same method of operation in the marketplace to make a maximum amount of certifications possible...kinda like how everyone who pays for scuba certification gets certified.
Soon all will be certified except the ones who won't sell out and go along with the charade. Who knows? Perhaps the charade will keep the status quo going and save the trade as it is, making true voices for reform seem more obsolete and radical.
Don't worry. They'll amend and adjust the paperwork snafu and make it go down easier.
I to want to save the trade. I just wanted to save coral reefs at the same time. Oh well...how silly of me not to accept how the "real world" works.
To close to this thing,
Better sign off,
Steve

 

[flameangel1]

Steve (cortez )-
Thats the point I was trying to make .
MAC certification does NOT mean anything and I will not buy into that.
The real "proof of the pudding" is the honest dealers, who do the best they can to buy and sell with ETHICS and MORALS.

Not with some "not worth the paper it is written on" to make themselves look good !!!!
I am with you and feel so frustrated by what false crap is going on and no one really gives a damn, except those of us who are already converted.

 

[flameangel1]

Am completey mystified by what exactly MAC is trying to prove with their certification.
How can a batch of cyanide free fish be certified-so long as none of them die within 3 days?? They are not then certified anything?? Then if none die within 5 days-they are then certified cyanide free again ??
What about the shipping/holding -re-shipping etc ???
How exactly are these fish getting the cyanide along the way- or what ever makes them no longer certifiable ???

I am really missing something here--
Either they are or are not Mac certified to begin with !!!!
As I see it- MAC board members do not have a clue what this industry really is doing or having to deal with !!!!!!!!

(ps-- am rather p/o'd at the minute so the above post may be confusing )

 

[MaryHM]

I don't have a track record with mortalities of cyanided fish, but from what I understand it takes about 10-14 days for them to actually die from it. If that's true, since there is NO cyanide test that MAC is supporting and MAC is totally depending on the honor system when a collector says their fish are net caught...isn't it obvious that a batch of cyanided fish could easily become certified after 5 days? Even if you have 90% mortality on that 6th day, those leftover fish would STILL be certified. Is is just me, or is that utterly absurd?

 

[Kalkbreath]

Funny thing is , that my Philippine regal tangs almost never die in the store......some at times ,.I have had for months.........and I know they were most likely juiced? So my question is , why has there never been a true study showing the "ill effects of Cyanide on collected fish health? I know of one major wholesaler in LA ,that says they once went out collecting with juice fisherman and bottle collected assorted fish types ..............also collected net cought fish as well. Then they sent the fish back to USA .............. well weeks later the results were NOT what would be expected? So again why no real data on cyanide health related deaths? Why is it that MAC seems more interested in what happens to the fish AFTER they have been cought?
_________________
Desperate Housewives Forum
_________________
Mercedes Benz 300D

 

[flameangel1]

Kalk,,
MAC is concentrating on the fish aspect (??) but dont you know that cyanide kills corals ??? We are thinking here of the whole system of this hobby and the reefs as a whole also.
NOT just one small part.
.
How can you be unconcerned about knowingly buying cyanide caught fish???? Think of the big picture here !!

 

[clarionreef]

Its not a cyanide collection reform campaign, its a certification campaign.
There is a ocean of difference.
Steve

 

[MaryHM]

Honestly Kalkbreath, you must be kidding or trying to get under people's skin. Like Judy said, CYANIDE KILLS CORALS. It also kills collectors. Not everything revolves around getting a fish to live for a year in a tank. It's important that the habitat isn't destroyed in the process. Of course there are cyanided fish that live. There are also people who survived the nuclear bombs in Japan. It's the overall effect that is the problem. There is a BIG picture here that some people can just never seem to understand. Sad. Ask your "major LA wholesaler" to give you a run down on the reefs around the Philippines and Indonesia. Ask them what the conditions are now vs. 20 years ago. And don't come back with the "not all of the damage has been caused by the aquarium industry" argument. Of course it hasn't. But cyanide has played a huge role in the destruction of coral reefs in PI and Indo. I know you like to see "real data", so here ya go.

http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v177/p83-91.html

http://www.marine.org/PDF_Downloads/The ... ppines.pdf

Those are just 2 that I found quickly. I'm sure you can find more if you look around.

 

[Kalkbreath]

Again , The link you provided takes into account very little, the effects of such things as blastfishing on the distruction .......and the effects of poor holding systems on fish deaths at the collectors vs, cyanide deaths? also the intire industry has seen a decrease in the total number of fish exported, not just PI. Due in part to the decrease in demand.............. not supply. So a 16 percent decrease in total exported fish each year means something ,but not what the author is implying! Not a very objective report? But I shal read more when I have time
_________________
hash oil
_________________
sour diesel sour bubble pics

 

[JennM]

Here's something even more ironic...

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showt ... #post93529

I was sent these brochures a few months ago, by MAC and for the reef club. I've not had a chance to bring the to the club meeting and haven't really looked at their content.

The poster of that thread on TRT is a friend of mine, he saw the brochure on my counter and looked at it and started laughing. I hadn't noticed the picture on the front but it's worth a thousand hypocritical words.

Jenn

 

[PeterIMA]

I agree with Mary Middlebrook that the use of sodium cyanide is a major problem in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It has indeed caused widespread destruction of coral reefs and contributes to the delayed mortaly of marine aquarium fish. Mary provided a link to a paper that I wrote in 1986 "The Effects of Sodim Cyanide on Marine Fish and Coral Reefs in the Philippines. This is just one of more than 15 articles that I have written on this topic. Steve Robinson also wrote extensively on the topic from his first hand knowledge of dealing with collectors in the Philippines and other countries. Kalkbreath ask where are the studies that separate the percent mortality by factors such as stress, cyanide, ammonia etc. I have a paper that I published in 2001 titled "Cyanide-free Net-Caught Fish For The Marine Aquarium Trade - Aquarium Sciences and Conservation 3: 37-51 (2001). It is downloadable from the Kluwer Academic Publishers site (if you are a library that pays for the priviledge). For those who don't have access, I can mail you a hard copy, if you email me at [email protected]. The paper provides a detailed discussion of the various causes of mortality of marine fish.

With regard to the MAC, one needs to understand that MAC Certification is not just about whether fish were caught with cyanide or not, but about addressing all of the problems relating to collection, handling, transport, and ecosytem management. For more specifics, send me an email.

Sincerely,
Peter J. Rubec, Ph.D.
International Marinelife Alliance

 

[Kalkbreath]

Peter J Rubic, have you ever read the {Wood} report. it shows that reef fish populations in all but a limited few areas , have remained stable for the last twenty years. Please explain what the problem is that we are trying to fix?
_________________
Aging Forum
_________________
Acura TSX

 

[naesco]

Kalkbreath one more time

We hobbyists are getting sick and tired of walking in LFS and finding a bunch of dying fish and diseased coral languishing in their tanks.

We are sick and tired for seeing fish like cleaner wrasse, clown tangs and many butterflyfish and coral that has no chance of living in our tanks sold to unsuspecting newbies.

We are sick and tired of hearing feeble arguments from you and some others defending industry in these issues.

Why? one more time
Because unless you clean up your act NOW big brother will come in and do it for you with the result that we hobbyists will be left with trading brown frags and clownfish with eachother.
Wake up and do something now for petes sake.

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
I know Elizabeth Wood and she is as alarmed and as sensitive to reef destruction as anyone. Are you quoting a report from a responsible collection history in certain areas as in Mexico and Australia that are hardly on the same planet as Philippines and Indo? I know for certain that she would never say that cyanide collection is sustainable and harmless as you seem to imply. You want her to answer it personally? That can be arranged.
Shes a responsible researcher and would not like her work twisted and employed to make ALL collection of tropical fishes appear blanketly harmless because it most certainly is not.
I have my own thousands of hours underwater in S.E.Asia and I can testify personally to coral reefs being converted into worthless underwater parking lots over the years.
The case for sustainable fish collecting with nets does not need to be mixed with rubbish about "sustainable cyanide collecting."
You just trying to get a rise out of people or what?
Steve Robinson

 

[Kalkbreath]

Naesco< So are you saying ,no more coral harvest ? Coral harvesting for the trade is so tiny, that to concern oneself with its impact is silly . CITES controls any and all animals which that body feels needs protecting. No hobby fish are within the scope of CITES because there is no reef fish needing protection. The idea that if we limit the hobby collection to a few "hardy fish like groupers is again silly,80 % of all groupers die within weeks of being sold as well ? What do you think would hurt the reef more .................100,000 fish evenly collected from five hundred different fish types........................................or 100,000 groupers? Being tired of seeing sick fish and corals in the petshop is fine ........but the sick fish and coral in the Carribean reefs would like some attention as well .
_________________
Honda CBF1000
_________________
1970 recession

 

[Kalkbreath]

Kalk,
I know Elizabeth Wood and she is as alarmed and as sensitive to reef destruction as anyone.
You just trying to get a rise out of people or what?
Steve Robinson

Have you read her report? She may have wanted to find one result ,.but her report shows another. Read it! I was QUITE surprised! Twenty years of collection no change in fish populations! Thousands of yellow tangs collected from the same few reefs, week after week after week...............Healthy reefs can sustain almost anything , even the reefs on Hawaii when covered by moltent lava fully recover within four years1 Ever wonder why carribean reefs and PI reefs dont? Its because they are not healthy. something is killing the worlds reefs and its not the over collection of twin spot gobies........
_________________
Honda Zest
_________________
Brazilian Forum

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
Net caught Yellow tangs don't count. Opportunistic herbivores recruit faster than anything and anywhere that algae grows...even where the coral is killed. [Purporting the exception to be the norm is not useful in trying to sort things out.]
Not so with blue tangs however, nor blue face, nor blue korans etc
If only the example of the yellow tangs reproductive exuberance and adaptability were representative of the many other species in question...Habitat is primary and the destruction of habitat causes demographic nosedives in most species. If the coral is allowed to grow back for years, fish do return quite nicely. But theres another twist..."If allowed" to. That implies protection of the area.
In the infamous cyanide triangle Indo and P.I. the "lawn is mowed" way too often with crowbars and poison and fish do not return.
Sure the industry could be sustainable and some of it is...its just that we have a dark side that does not represent our better selves and that side need not be exonerated from blame for its crimes.
Whitewashing the dark side does a disservice to the responsible current in our industry trying to clean it up.
Steve

 

[PeterIMA]

I agree with Steve and others replying concerning the Woods report. The report in question was written in the early 1970s and pertains to collection practices in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) where nets have been used and no cyanide (until maybe the last few years). I have a copy of the report. Kalkbreath I suggest you obtain the report and read it more carefully. I do not consider that it provides much information concerning whether collection practices are sustainable or not (e.g., little or no field monitoring data is presented). It does give the reader information on what species are in the aquarium trade.

Peter Rubec