I think that the reporter misunderstood what Paul Holthus was saying during this interview. Original article can be found at this link from the Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/h ... nt/1965395
June 26, 2003, 9:20AM
'Finding Nemo' presses hot buttons for ecologists
By ALEXANDER LANE
Copyright 2003 Newhouse News Service
Finding Nemo, the hit Disney movie about a tropical fish desperate to escape from a dentist's aquarium, is full of messages.
SEE IT NOW
• Watch the Finding Nemo trailers: 1 2
• Visit the Web site
It preaches against everything from overprotective fathers to trawling boats that catch too many innocent by-swimmers.
But it also sermonizes at the growing subculture of saltwater aquarium keepers. The film portrays the capturing of fish and other creatures from coral reefs -- the primary means of supplying saltwater aquariums -- as cruel and destructive.
A diver nets young Nemo from his reef in a terrifying sequence. He and Gill, a crusty old angelfish who also was born in the ocean, spend their time in the glass prison concocting elaborate escape schemes.
Nemo and Gill, a crusty old angelfish who also was born in the ocean, spend their time concocting elaborate escape schemes in Finding Nemo.
"Since the reviews first started, that's all the reefers have been talking about," said Philip Levanda of Nutley, N.J., a 27-year-old engineer and addicted coral-reef keeper.
Intentionally or not, Disney has dived into the hottest issue in the world of tropical fish-keeping. Pet stores are filled with fish, corals, anemones and other creatures ripped from depleted coral reefs, often after having been stunned by a squirt of cyanide.
Reef-lovers are trying to stem the practice. A Hawaii-based group is struggling to start a stamp-of-approval program for retailers who say their creatures have been tank-bred or "ethically captured." Nine-year-old Alexander Gould, the voice of Nemo, has signed on as the group's spokesman.
"When I first started out I didn't know about the cyanide and the depletion," Levanda said. "Lately I've been watching who I buy from and where they're getting it from."
Levanda said he trades with other expert hobbyists and buys from Internet providers who advertise ethical collection.
Aquarium keeping has been around since the mid-1800s, but only in the past 12 years or so has the average home hobbyist been able to maintain a miniature coral reef. Advances in science's understanding of ocean chemistry have enabled anyone willing to spend several hundred dollars to create their own tropical ecosystem.
Retailers sell rock chiseled off reefs from Fiji, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere, crawling with bacteria that digest harmful nitrogen into oxygen. Hermit crabs and starfish scour the sand, filtering out fish waste, with mechanical protein skimmers taking up the slack. Powerful halogen lights feed photosynthetic corals. Aquarists treat their water with everything from synthetic salt to calcium supplements.
Between gear and creatures, it has exploded into a $500 million industry, experts say. Though statistics are not methodically compiled, about 10 million marine specimens were sold in U.S. pet stores at an average price of $10 in 1995, according to an American Marinelife Dealers Association survey.
Coral reefs are treasures of biodiversity. They represent about 1 percent of the ocean, yet 25 percent of all marine species rely on them for some element of their life span, such as spawning or feeding.
Corals themselves -- tiny animals whose colonies can take the forms of everything from branching trees to pipe organs to neon-green brains -- are relatively easy to propagate in captivity. Hobbyists can simply cut off a fragment of a friend's specimen, glue it to a rock and watch it grow.
But many are chiseled off reefs and sold by stores. And tropical fish are more difficult to propagate. Though major advances have been made in captive breeding of clownfish -- Nemo's species and the most popular aquarium fish -- many fish larvae will not survive in captivity. Only about 2 percent of fish sold in pet stores are bred in captivity, according to the Hawaii-based Marine Aquarium Council.
The council has created a certification program for nondestructive fish collectors, middlemen and retailers, but the effort is in its infancy. The group approves of collecting live fish, as long as it is done with drugs and does not exhaust the local population of a species.
"The reality is this trade will be based on wild-caught fish for a long time to come. The need is to fix it," said executive director Paul Holthus.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/h ... nt/1965395
June 26, 2003, 9:20AM
'Finding Nemo' presses hot buttons for ecologists
By ALEXANDER LANE
Copyright 2003 Newhouse News Service
Finding Nemo, the hit Disney movie about a tropical fish desperate to escape from a dentist's aquarium, is full of messages.
SEE IT NOW
• Watch the Finding Nemo trailers: 1 2
• Visit the Web site
It preaches against everything from overprotective fathers to trawling boats that catch too many innocent by-swimmers.
But it also sermonizes at the growing subculture of saltwater aquarium keepers. The film portrays the capturing of fish and other creatures from coral reefs -- the primary means of supplying saltwater aquariums -- as cruel and destructive.
A diver nets young Nemo from his reef in a terrifying sequence. He and Gill, a crusty old angelfish who also was born in the ocean, spend their time in the glass prison concocting elaborate escape schemes.
Nemo and Gill, a crusty old angelfish who also was born in the ocean, spend their time concocting elaborate escape schemes in Finding Nemo.
"Since the reviews first started, that's all the reefers have been talking about," said Philip Levanda of Nutley, N.J., a 27-year-old engineer and addicted coral-reef keeper.
Intentionally or not, Disney has dived into the hottest issue in the world of tropical fish-keeping. Pet stores are filled with fish, corals, anemones and other creatures ripped from depleted coral reefs, often after having been stunned by a squirt of cyanide.
Reef-lovers are trying to stem the practice. A Hawaii-based group is struggling to start a stamp-of-approval program for retailers who say their creatures have been tank-bred or "ethically captured." Nine-year-old Alexander Gould, the voice of Nemo, has signed on as the group's spokesman.
"When I first started out I didn't know about the cyanide and the depletion," Levanda said. "Lately I've been watching who I buy from and where they're getting it from."
Levanda said he trades with other expert hobbyists and buys from Internet providers who advertise ethical collection.
Aquarium keeping has been around since the mid-1800s, but only in the past 12 years or so has the average home hobbyist been able to maintain a miniature coral reef. Advances in science's understanding of ocean chemistry have enabled anyone willing to spend several hundred dollars to create their own tropical ecosystem.
Retailers sell rock chiseled off reefs from Fiji, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere, crawling with bacteria that digest harmful nitrogen into oxygen. Hermit crabs and starfish scour the sand, filtering out fish waste, with mechanical protein skimmers taking up the slack. Powerful halogen lights feed photosynthetic corals. Aquarists treat their water with everything from synthetic salt to calcium supplements.
Between gear and creatures, it has exploded into a $500 million industry, experts say. Though statistics are not methodically compiled, about 10 million marine specimens were sold in U.S. pet stores at an average price of $10 in 1995, according to an American Marinelife Dealers Association survey.
Coral reefs are treasures of biodiversity. They represent about 1 percent of the ocean, yet 25 percent of all marine species rely on them for some element of their life span, such as spawning or feeding.
Corals themselves -- tiny animals whose colonies can take the forms of everything from branching trees to pipe organs to neon-green brains -- are relatively easy to propagate in captivity. Hobbyists can simply cut off a fragment of a friend's specimen, glue it to a rock and watch it grow.
But many are chiseled off reefs and sold by stores. And tropical fish are more difficult to propagate. Though major advances have been made in captive breeding of clownfish -- Nemo's species and the most popular aquarium fish -- many fish larvae will not survive in captivity. Only about 2 percent of fish sold in pet stores are bred in captivity, according to the Hawaii-based Marine Aquarium Council.
The council has created a certification program for nondestructive fish collectors, middlemen and retailers, but the effort is in its infancy. The group approves of collecting live fish, as long as it is done with drugs and does not exhaust the local population of a species.
"The reality is this trade will be based on wild-caught fish for a long time to come. The need is to fix it," said executive director Paul Holthus.
