A
Anonymous
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cortez marine":3w2508b9 said:
how is it possible to not get wet?
i get soaked on an almost daily basis
:wink:
BBC News - Aquaria are 'risk to tropical fish' in the wild
- Thread starter John_Brandt
- Start date
how is it possible to not get wet?
i get soaked on an almost daily basis
:wink:What's that saying? Figures lie and liars figure. No one can prove or disprove the data. I'll bet a dollar to a donut that bit about cleaner wrasses and mandarins being traded in large numbers, despite poor survivial rates, is directly attributable to John Brandt.
clarionreef
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- San Francisco
Vitz,
What I ment was that the new class of "pundits, experts and researchers" are making hay without getting wet...not bonafide marinelife dealers.
We have a dozen of them in Mexico trying to forge careers for themselves and ruining us in the process. Under the pretext of "trying to understand the trade" they have taxed us to death, loaded our collecting boats with themselves and gear, interfered with collecting, thrown up everywhere, made us come back in early, charged us for everything and restricted our quotas, seasons, permits etc. etc.
They need a copy of every single thing we do and put their names on our research! They have made enemies of the fisherman and have ruined one season after another.
These are the types I'm referring to. There is a pretense of public good in the schemes they run but we who are closer to it all know different. Its self service plain and simple.
Steve
PS. Yes...I'm sick to death of phoney biologists and researchers forcing themselves on our village enterprise to futher their careers to the detriment of the fisherman. If they were genuine, it would be a different story.
What I ment was that the new class of "pundits, experts and researchers" are making hay without getting wet...not bonafide marinelife dealers.
We have a dozen of them in Mexico trying to forge careers for themselves and ruining us in the process. Under the pretext of "trying to understand the trade" they have taxed us to death, loaded our collecting boats with themselves and gear, interfered with collecting, thrown up everywhere, made us come back in early, charged us for everything and restricted our quotas, seasons, permits etc. etc.
They need a copy of every single thing we do and put their names on our research! They have made enemies of the fisherman and have ruined one season after another.
These are the types I'm referring to. There is a pretense of public good in the schemes they run but we who are closer to it all know different. Its self service plain and simple.
Steve
PS. Yes...I'm sick to death of phoney biologists and researchers forcing themselves on our village enterprise to futher their careers to the detriment of the fisherman. If they were genuine, it would be a different story.
GreshamH":2uomgr10 said:
Choerodon fasciatus is the Harlequin Tuskfish.
The report is not scientific per se. It is a report in which the basis for itself is a large database of specific trade statistics. If the authors get all the numbers in the right columns they've done their job correctly. There are some obvious errors with species identification, but that does not make the entire work flawed, nor does it detract from the issues at hand. Some of the photographs are mine, but were incorrectly credited to Peter Scott.
The report could have been improved with more specialized editing. Not exactly the same as scientific peer review, but your point is well taken.
clarionreef
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- San Francisco
Ditz,
Why Lenard must be Cory's cousin on his mothers side.
Steve
ps. Hey, whats in a name, a fact, or a conclusion. What are ya, some kind of 'science guy' that wants things to be straight?
Its a 'popular ' piece...Like Nemo. The fact that it was timed for Nemos release already tells you something. It was in fact planned for 'popular' appeal and as such took liscense and liberty with things contained in it.
As a book report....I give it a C-. As a prescription, a guide and a recipe for getting things done right...it is too flawed to be taken seriously.
Perhaps if taken as a rough draft and open for peer review, it could be improved a great deal.
Why Lenard must be Cory's cousin on his mothers side.
Steve
ps. Hey, whats in a name, a fact, or a conclusion. What are ya, some kind of 'science guy' that wants things to be straight?
Its a 'popular ' piece...Like Nemo. The fact that it was timed for Nemos release already tells you something. It was in fact planned for 'popular' appeal and as such took liscense and liberty with things contained in it.
As a book report....I give it a C-. As a prescription, a guide and a recipe for getting things done right...it is too flawed to be taken seriously.
Perhaps if taken as a rough draft and open for peer review, it could be improved a great deal.
clarionreef
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- San Francisco
Ditz, I mean Vitz...I mean Diz, er Dizzy,
Aw heck, Whats in a name anyway?
John,
My point , to be quite serious about it is that the same looseness in passing on error and anecdotal info had translated into creative liscence with conclusions, remedy and prescription advice.
The gossip about Haribon and the IMA years was an interesting read, the confusion in the attempt to match up imported figures with exported ones another endless thread that will never achieve closure.
Don't even mention the institutional, routine and habitual misdeclarations of Philippine invoices over the past 40 years. Anyone even thinking that US Fish and Wildlife declarations give you any inkling of values has never heard the agents themselves joke about this matter!
Many things that need to be understood about the truth of matters in this trade cannot be pulled off the internet. The report is limited to things that have been reported already by others. It is in fact a report on reports compiled by largely non-participants in the aquarium trade trying to understand it themselves.
Let me make it super clear.
Starkii damsels and Potters angels generally do poorly in their first two weeks of captivity.
Do you know why? Could the author of the report find out why? How bout the BBC writer? Anyone?
I know why.
BUT ITS NOT ON THE INTERNET.
If the answer gets some play here...it will be. Until then, it will not be.
No matter how serious a researcher you are...you cannot find this answer until it is revealed by people who get wet. If wet people are not consulted and excluded from the search for truth...you will not figure it out.
There is a disconnect between the nearshore working class that collects fish for a living and the urban educated sector trying to understand it from afar. Why is this? Can you find it on the internet?
Of course not...but there is nonetheless a serious issue there.
In between there are assorted bureaucrats and administrators that process and file away import/export paperwork [ not data but paperwork ]. This paperwork is supposed to give you a handle on the trade? Some aspects of it perhaps but not nearly enough to earn the right tell us what its all about and prescribe remedies.
Steve
Aw heck, Whats in a name anyway?
John,
My point , to be quite serious about it is that the same looseness in passing on error and anecdotal info had translated into creative liscence with conclusions, remedy and prescription advice.
The gossip about Haribon and the IMA years was an interesting read, the confusion in the attempt to match up imported figures with exported ones another endless thread that will never achieve closure.
Don't even mention the institutional, routine and habitual misdeclarations of Philippine invoices over the past 40 years. Anyone even thinking that US Fish and Wildlife declarations give you any inkling of values has never heard the agents themselves joke about this matter!
Many things that need to be understood about the truth of matters in this trade cannot be pulled off the internet. The report is limited to things that have been reported already by others. It is in fact a report on reports compiled by largely non-participants in the aquarium trade trying to understand it themselves.
Let me make it super clear.
Starkii damsels and Potters angels generally do poorly in their first two weeks of captivity.
Do you know why? Could the author of the report find out why? How bout the BBC writer? Anyone?
I know why.
BUT ITS NOT ON THE INTERNET.
If the answer gets some play here...it will be. Until then, it will not be.
No matter how serious a researcher you are...you cannot find this answer until it is revealed by people who get wet. If wet people are not consulted and excluded from the search for truth...you will not figure it out.
There is a disconnect between the nearshore working class that collects fish for a living and the urban educated sector trying to understand it from afar. Why is this? Can you find it on the internet?
Of course not...but there is nonetheless a serious issue there.
In between there are assorted bureaucrats and administrators that process and file away import/export paperwork [ not data but paperwork ]. This paperwork is supposed to give you a handle on the trade? Some aspects of it perhaps but not nearly enough to earn the right tell us what its all about and prescribe remedies.
Steve
SciGuy2":paoaqvqx said:
Right. You've got to stay on your toes Mitch, or keep one eye on those who do stay on their toes. When I was growing up it was Lienardella fasciatus. About 6 years ago I saw a picture of a Harlequin tuskfish with the name Choerodon fasciatus and I nearly puked. So I looked in my own library and found recent books with it listed as Choerodon. Wow, they had changed it and I hadn't known.
Another thing happened not too long ago. I could never figure out how to pronounce the angelfish genus, Euxiphipops. Well, I don't have to anymore...they are now Pomacanthus.
I presume the error with the Copperband butterfly becoming Copperhead butterfly was a copying error by a person unfamiliar with the fish. Any subsequent editors would likely have been unfamiliar as well.
The error on the Chaetodon plebeius becoming Polydactylus plebeius is a whopper but easily explained as a search error using species name. It is correct on both lists of unsuitable species. And again it would have been caught by someone familiar with the fish.
cortez marine":rx6fxafj said:
From the report text page 17:
"Moreover, trade data obtained through customs’ statistics should be treated with caution as some operators have been known to overstate quantities on their invoices for insurance purposes, or on other occasions understate quantities so as to reduce the amount of tax payable and keep annual shipments within the individual allowable quotas. In Hong Kong, a study comparing information obtained from trade statistics with data collected through market surveys indicated that official declarations of imports are under-reported by at least two-to three-fold."
John_Brandt":1hw3jom2 said:
Did they move it out of the wrasse family as well? I was looking in Fairy & Rainbow Wrasses and their relatives by Rudie Kuiter and the Harlequin tusk was not in there under either name. What is Choerodon anyway? Some type of butterfly? :wink:
Oh it's still a wrasse. The genus Choerodon are the 'tuskfishes'. They are bulky and fairly common on and near reefs. A number of them are important foodfish. I ate an 8" Choerodon anchorago for lunch before the MAC Certification Graduation in Clarin, Bohol Philippines. Excellent fish, with beautiful white flesh. Everything's cooked whole in the Philippines, so it came with the eyes glaring and teeth baring.
damn those taxonomists, i hate 'em!! :twisted:
heh
the same thing happens all the time w/many f/w fish, especially cichlids, both african and south american
heck, even the 'lowly' but ever ubiquitous guppy has been reclassified, at least once, from lebistes, to poecillia :wink:
heh
the same thing happens all the time w/many f/w fish, especially cichlids, both african and south american
heck, even the 'lowly' but ever ubiquitous guppy has been reclassified, at least once, from lebistes, to poecillia :wink:
The first part of the Executive Summary is clear, objective and right to the issues:
"Between 1.5 and 2 million people worldwide are believed to keep marine aquaria. The trade which supplies this hobby with live marine animals is a global multi-million dollar industry, worth an estimated US$200-330 million annually, and operating throughout the tropics. Ornamental marine species (corals, other invertebrates and fish) are collected and transported mainly from Southeast Asia, but also increasingly from several island nations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, to consumers in the main destination markets: the United States, the European Union (EU)and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
Very few of the species in trade are exploited directly for other purposes, and there is little doubt that aquarium animals are the highest value added product that can be harvested from a coral reef. If managed
sustainably, the trade could support jobs in predominantly rural, low-income coastal communities and so provide strong economic incentives for coral reef conservation in regions where other options for generating revenue are limited. However, damaging techniques occasionally used
to collect the animals, possible over-harvesting of some species and the high levels of mortality associated with inadequate handling and transport of sensitive living organisms undermine this potential, and continue to pose significant challenges to achieving sustainability. As a result the trade has seldom been free of controversy as traders try to generate a profit, conservationists try to avoid further decline in coral reefs also suffering from other pressures, and policy makers try to assemble a
legislative framework that protects coral reefs without threatening a legitimate business activity or the incomes of communities engaged in aquarium fishing.
In the main, this debate has taken place without access to impartial and quantitative data on the trade and, with so many different viewpoints, achieving consensus on its impacts, and hence the identification of suitable responses, has been difficult."
"Between 1.5 and 2 million people worldwide are believed to keep marine aquaria. The trade which supplies this hobby with live marine animals is a global multi-million dollar industry, worth an estimated US$200-330 million annually, and operating throughout the tropics. Ornamental marine species (corals, other invertebrates and fish) are collected and transported mainly from Southeast Asia, but also increasingly from several island nations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, to consumers in the main destination markets: the United States, the European Union (EU)and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
Very few of the species in trade are exploited directly for other purposes, and there is little doubt that aquarium animals are the highest value added product that can be harvested from a coral reef. If managed
sustainably, the trade could support jobs in predominantly rural, low-income coastal communities and so provide strong economic incentives for coral reef conservation in regions where other options for generating revenue are limited. However, damaging techniques occasionally used
to collect the animals, possible over-harvesting of some species and the high levels of mortality associated with inadequate handling and transport of sensitive living organisms undermine this potential, and continue to pose significant challenges to achieving sustainability. As a result the trade has seldom been free of controversy as traders try to generate a profit, conservationists try to avoid further decline in coral reefs also suffering from other pressures, and policy makers try to assemble a
legislative framework that protects coral reefs without threatening a legitimate business activity or the incomes of communities engaged in aquarium fishing.
In the main, this debate has taken place without access to impartial and quantitative data on the trade and, with so many different viewpoints, achieving consensus on its impacts, and hence the identification of suitable responses, has been difficult."
dizzy":ru8xu4kj said:
Make mine Dunkin' Donuts chocolate eclairs. I know you are keen on conspiracies Mitch, but you shouldn't pin this directly on me. It's a collaboration of data. WCMC connected the dots. They consulted Scott Michael and myself on the unsuitable species. From looking at our lists one can see we both agreed that cleaner wrasses and mandarinfish are somewhat unsuitable (but not of the highest degree). Then they plotted out the Top 10 Traded Species to see if any of our 'unsuitables' fall on the big list. Yes, 2 of them do....the cleaner wrasse and mandarinfish not only are relatively unsuitable but they are also traded within the top 10 species. The fact is that the majority of unsuitable species are traded in relatively small numbers. This is explained in the report.
All I provided was a short report on unsuitable species. I didn't know it was going to end up in this report and that's why I was surprised when I saw it.
Now, I'm curious if WCMC was inspired by my Top 10 Marine Fish List (poll) posted on reefs.org to make their lists of Top 10's in the report. We didn't collaborate on any Top 10 list, and I never knew they were going to do them in a report. Maybe it's just coincidence. Maybe I think too much.
John_Brandt":1nh0usuo said:
John,
Right now I have three green mandarins Synchiropus splendidus and one Psychedelic mandarin S. pictuaratus that readily eat live adult brine shrimp. Brad from A&M, which is one of the MAC certified wholesalers, told me that they get in 150 mandarins at a time and that they get nearly all of them to readily eat the frozen Cyclops Ease (I think it is called). I personally consider mandarins to be an easy fish to keep if you set them up properly. You guys are giving advice on unsuitable fish and I'll bet the average marine retailer that has been in this business for over 15-years has way more personal experience keeping 100s if not 1000s of individuals of these species. As I've stated before I think the unsuitable list should be based on sustainability. You start putting common and relatively hardy fish like mandarins on your list and you cheat not only the good hobbyists, but the poor collectors as well.
That's why I put mandarins on List B and not A. I know that they can be hardy fish, and I've had them eating flake food. But statistically speaking they are a high early-mortality creature.
Mitch, with 23 years in marine retail I do have experiences (most by proxy) with many 1000's of fish.
From the Endnotes of the report comes a portion of my comments:
"These compiled lists and their criteria do not represent a highly formalized approach to the issue. Much dialogue between hobbyists, professional aquarists and scientists on this topic should occur before any official regulations, policies or legislation be enacted from these lists."
I'm saying that before any fish are regulated or banned or whatever because they may be unsuitable, there should be an open discussion on the issue. I don't think that mandarinfish should be prevented from being MAC Certified. Certain quotas may need to be implemented if they are found to be overexploited.
I know that the Batasan Island mandarins are awesome fish. They are large, high quality and very colorful.
My personal opinion on certifying 'unsuitable species' is that only those on my List A should not be certified. And never without committee agreement.
Mitch, with 23 years in marine retail I do have experiences (most by proxy) with many 1000's of fish.
From the Endnotes of the report comes a portion of my comments:
"These compiled lists and their criteria do not represent a highly formalized approach to the issue. Much dialogue between hobbyists, professional aquarists and scientists on this topic should occur before any official regulations, policies or legislation be enacted from these lists."
I'm saying that before any fish are regulated or banned or whatever because they may be unsuitable, there should be an open discussion on the issue. I don't think that mandarinfish should be prevented from being MAC Certified. Certain quotas may need to be implemented if they are found to be overexploited.
I know that the Batasan Island mandarins are awesome fish. They are large, high quality and very colorful.
My personal opinion on certifying 'unsuitable species' is that only those on my List A should not be certified. And never without committee agreement.
I sure wouldn't put my name to a published paper if it wasn't proofed by people who know the subject. With all his contact with smart industry players like yourself John, why didn't he contact any of them to proof it?
Ah, but they usually come in starved from there. Sure, on that end they looked great John, but you should see them on this end, after sitting around in Manilia and Batasan Island.
.
Ah, but they usually come in starved from there. Sure, on that end they looked great John, but you should see them on this end, after sitting around in Manilia and Batasan Island.
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