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Anonymous
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are you saying that stores purposefully don't sell stock to keep their stores fuller longer?
:lol:
only 5% of sold fish are cyanide collected.
- Thread starter Kalkbreath
- Start date
are you saying that stores purposefully don't sell stock to keep their stores fuller longer?
:lol:
No , Even you said thatvitz":16r3vkri said:
If you had been referring to an every week shipment , then you would have used the wording "on the week ends" or "near the end of the week"You response is that of someone whom orders less then weekly. Which supports the notion that average store order evrey two weeks. Or that they order a large shipment one week and a smaller the following week. LFS keep more dry goods then the sell each week and many keep more fish in stock then they sell each week. I bring in a large shipment of fish once a month. Then reorder some of the fish we sell out of each week . But thats because I order direct and need to fullfill a twenty box or forty box min due to freight discounts on L-2 containers. So most of the fish in my store stay longer then two weeks before being sold. But also keep in mind that my store is a coral, clams and rock store. The less fish in a reef tank the better is my modo.
:wink:
Yes, but there are more then one way to look at the data....1.) Testing for the three most current years droped to as little as 8% and averaged in at 18 percent. for the three most current years ...... 2.)Even if all the years are averaged together some from as long ago as nine years!, The twenty five percent is for 70 percent of the fish stock not all collection countries. So its still twenty percent or less as the starting point .mkirda":38x9vu4q said:
The are many ways to examine the data. For the three most current test results years, cyanide levels dipped to 8% and averaged 18 percent. What is the level today? The collectors collected 6 million fish in 1998 , yet needed little cyanide to do so. With competition from many countries today in 2004 .PI is only shipping 3 million fish now. What makes you think the rate is not again at 8%? The collectors have a lot more competion now . Quality counts now. A sure sign that collection use of cyanide dropped in 2001 is that fact that after four years , the data has still not been released. With only a few hundered fish in the study , it would take only a few hours to come up with a percentage, Seems there is something else holding up the release. sounds "fishy to me". Even if we are to use all the recorded data , some as old as nine years ago to gauge the current fish collection. The 25 percent average is for 70%of the fish . So any way you want to look at it .....its less the 20 percent for a starting point.
Kalkbreath":mu5fk9mi said:
Wow! You confirm you are making this up?
The problem with you using this is that it ignores an entire year's worth of data. If you get to pick and choose which data to start with, why not choose to eliminate the outlying low data? Start with 40 or 45% (Or whatever the highest number was...) It makes just as much sense.
I think I see finally where you are trying to go with this: You want to massage the data so that the rates per species or genus are weighted on the percentage as a whole that those genus or species comprise when shipped. Am I right?
The problem is:
1) You have no breakdown in data available in what species were exported year to year.
2) Peter hasn't published that data from year to year either AFAIK.
3) You are using the only data available to extrapolate to the rest of the trade in the rest of the world.
Because of all of these, the only way to attack this problem is by using all the data publicly available and use the averages of it. You cannot pretend to accurately massage it due to #1 and 2.
IOW, start with 25%. It is the only intellectually honest number you can start with, and acknowledge that the actual percentage is very likely higher due to the fact that exporters can voluntarily submit samples, thereby circumventing the test anyway.
kalk wrote: ( my response in bold)
If you had been referring to an every week shipment , then you would have used the wording "on the week ends" or "near the end of the week"
why?now you know which words i choose to use for my descriptive process? what do weekends have to do w/anything i stated earlier?i've worked in stores that followed different 'rhythms', and some that followed no particular 'rhythm at all
You response is that of someone whom orders less then weekly.
lol-how?there were plenty weeks in series w/2-3 shipments
Which supports the notion that average store order evrey two weeks. Or that they order a large shipment one week and a smaller the following week.
one large shipment one week and a smaller one the next is still weekly, yes?
LFS keep more dry goods then the sell each week and many keep more fish in stock then they sell each week.
lfs's never sell out of stock on dry goods?
I bring in a large shipment of fish once a month. Then reorder some of the fish we sell out of each week . But thats because I order direct and need to fullfill a twenty box or forty box min due to freight discounts on L-2 containers. So most of the fish in my store stay longer then two weeks before being sold. But also keep in mind that my store is a coral, clams and rock store.
i thought your store is a coral, clams, rock, AND FISH store?
The less fish in a reef tank the better is my modo.
I would think nine year old data would be the least accurate. The most current data would seem to reflect current conditions. When cyanide was at 65% in 1995 there were very little anti cyanide mesures in place. Today anti cyanide pressures like MAC are at an all time high. Seems to reason that once again cyanide use is lower then in 1995.mkirda":13k662y1 said:
No, I am pointing out that only 20% of the fish stock leaving the Philippines has been exposed to cyanide . Cyanide fish die at a higher rate then net collected fishduring the two weeks it takes to sell fish at retail. There fore even less then 20% of the fish sold to the public are cyanide fish. Do you disagree that cyanide fish die more often then net collected?Mkirda":13k662y1 said:
I did start with 25% its from 70 % of the fish stock not 100% so were back at twenty percent. If Peters study is all wet then say so. iF the tests were worthless as you discribe then you have zero to support the notion that cyanide fish are over flowing the US market.mkirda":13k662y1 said:
Kalkbreath":376i9rzq said:
Unless you have data to back that up, it is sheer conjecture, Kalk.
The only way to be accurate is to have SOMETHING to stand on.
If your argument is that the data is old and therefore worthless, then you have nothing to start with. You can say 20% and I'll say 99.9%. We'd both have just as much right to claim that our figures are right. And we'd both be filled with hot air.
At least when you start with something known, you got something to stand on. Picking and choosing which years to use makes your argument dubious from the start, Kalk. It is just five percent.
No, my assumption is that by the time fish have arrived in Manila, have been put into an exporter's facility, then chosen for CDT sampling, that the death of the fish would have occured already. My argument says nothing about the relative death rates up to that point. And for the sake of easy math, I would assume that fish that ship from that point have 0 DOA forward. My argument never made any assumptions beyond the intial ones outlined. If I were to make assumptions on DOA rates, they would be relatively small from Manila to LFS. I never spelled out that as an assumption though, so you can see that the math is simple because I assumed that it would be zero.
Reality dictates that it would be something more than zero, but I've never seen enough data to do more that make a guess. Most wholesalers tell me that they hear of less than 5%, and some boast as low as 1%. You want me to re-do the numbers with 5%?
I don't even understand that first sentence.
Peter's CDT analysis is what it is. 25% of the MO fish tested positive.
I never said that the CDT was worthless- I have said repeatedly that the test itself was easy to circumvent. All you need to do is order in some net-caught and send them in instead of your normal cyanide-caught fish. Or hold the fish for two weeks, then send them in. Either way, they will test negative, and you can continue to send out your fish where 60-80% of them WOULD have tested positive... This is the problem with BIASED sampling.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
The 25% positive result is a level that is conservative and probably lower than reality.
First, if the CDT testing was easy to circumnavigate. The why did food fish test 68% for cyanide? If 68% is with cheating then that would mean my contention that 98% of food fish are collected with cyanide is correct :wink: . Second, not all the fish for sale at a LFS are from PI or Indonesia. So the 25% you holdfast to is 25% of 70% ...since PI and Indo make up 70% of the total imports. Thats how I got to 20 percent as a starting point. Thirdly, Now your claiming only 5% DOA on all fish imported to the USA? You argued for weeks that Peter and Franks survey was most accurate at 68% for the East cost? What happened? Waht happened to Peters notion that 39% die at each level of transport? You are beginning to sound like Kerry :lol:
Wait , now I just re-did the math...........70% of the fish are from PI and Indonesia.......and 25 % of those fish are cyanide fish . then ONLY 14% of the fish entering the USA are cyanide fish . 14% cyanide +54% non cyanide fish from PI and Indo=70%........with the remainder of 30% from Hawaii, Fla , Caribbean, Tonga Fiji etc. Your right for the first time!!!! I was dead wrong.........its not 20% its only 14% !!!!! Thats using your numbers. I still feel cyanide use today is more in line with 1998 1997 test results in which only around ten percent of the tested fish came up cyanide exposed. That would mean only around 7% of the fish being loaded onto a plane for the US are cyanide fish. the industries 14% or my 7% is still not many fish . even if every one ended up in the hand of hobbyists. But then again how many consumer would pick the thin not eating cyanide fish in the first place? Any of the fish showing the effects of cyanide would be not chosen. so how many of those few cyanide fish reaching the LFS are actually bagged up? I have listed ten different ways that cyanide fish never reach the consumer ..... :
Kalkbreath":2nl7pb8q said:
Hey Kalk, did you even think about the number of fishes that died on the reef after being squirted, or died on their way to market? To my knowledge there is no data on that so I'm not going to speculate on the number, but suffice it to say that it is realistic that *some* die during collection (either directly or indirectly), and some die on their way to the middle-man/exporter.
I order weekly, a fairly uniform amount each week. Turn times vary depending on the species, some come and go quickly (Blue tangs, "Nemo" :roll: ) and others.. well I've got one really ugly but bulletproof spotted cardinal I've had since May 30, 2002. Personally I don't worry about how long they stay - I buy what I think will sell, but I like a good mix of species too, and sometimes they bunk with us for a while.
Jenn
The subject at hand is disproving the notion that very many of the fish hobbyists take home are cyanide doomed fish. Only five out of 100 fish purchased are exposed to cyanide .....and not all cyanide fish die from the exposer. So the number of hobbyists that can BLAME the cyanide for the death of their fish is maybe three percent. Hobbyist need to look within for the real reason their fish died.........
Kalkbreath":2r4mf6h0 said:
You finally figure out that it is more than 5%, for which I was going to applaud you... I mean four pages of posts for that single bitty point, but then you go right back to saying 5%. With all your flip-flops, you are hopeless I fear...
Kalkbreath":16r5pofn said:
But wouldn't it be nice if NO fish died from cyanide exposure, because no fish were exposed to it?
That's the point, or at least my point.
If you're that determined to prove that "almost no fish" die in hobbyists' tanks due to cyanide poisoining, should your thread not have read, "Reasons for mortality of hobbyists' fishes"??
Clearly the issue for you is not how many fish (and other organisms), die, PERIOD from cyanide exposure - otherwise you'd expand your vision beyond the chain of custody, to the reef and its environs.
I've seen bad hobbyists blame cyanide for their losses, either rightly or wrongly. I've seen good hobbyists do the same. Sometimes it's the only conclusion that can be drawn if there are no clear symptoms, but not too many send their fish for a necropsy. There are many reasons why fish die. Cyanide is one reason that can be solved. There are others too, but if they are doomed to die before they leave the reef, there's not much hope even if all the other issues are repaired.
Please, stop trying to make it sound "ok", it's not OK, and it never will be.
I have never said even a tiny bit of cyanide fishing is great . But there will always be a small percentage of people doing things the illegal way. Name one activity on the planet where a portion of the human beings dont cheat.? Name one? Why the he** do you think pet fish collecting can possible be any different? Do you really think in a country where there are more child prostitutes then cyanide fishermen its possible to stop all illegal fishing? aND WHAT MAKE US THINK WE HAVE A RIGHT TO TELL THEM WHATS RIGHT? More people died on US interstate road ways this year then died in the World trade Center towers on 911. Why ....Because we Americans love to cheat. 90% of Atlantans speed ....WHY? The rules and speed limits mean as much to us as the fishing rules mean to Philippinos. They cheat to survive.....Why do we Americans cheat? Even if our industry pulls out of PI all together .....do you really think it will have an effect on the reefs? The same fishermen will now fish for food fish . and more then likely cause more damage then when they collected MO pet fish. What would anyone gain? The reefs would be no better off and niether would the USA hobbyists. Because only five percent of the fish they buy are cyanide fish anyway. Thats my point!
No, we have been debating the starting point .........The percentage of fish tainted by cyanide which are headed to the US. Its 14% using the most respected data in the industry. But is it still 14% at the retail sales? I say no , because cyanide fish die more during transport to the LFS and even then Cyanide fish Look like cyanide fish after a week or so ....thus many of the cyanide fish for sale are never chosen by the hobbyist. That means far less then 14% of the fish sold are cyanide fish. YOU HOWEVER .... Continually support the notion that cyanide fish are just as healthy as net caught and survive for weeks without showing any signs of the exposer and that customers in the store will choose cyanide fish just as often as net collected fish! Which I will hold you to in my next topic ........" How many fish die in transport to the fish store " I hope you will join that discussion as well. :wink:mkirda":1avi508h said:
Kalkbreath":3590dwqv said:
No, but you haven't accepted that it is a problem, either. You are simply trying to skew the "data" (cough) to make it look like it's no big deal, or that "somebody else" is doing more damage, so our little damage is OK. IT IS NOT OK.
Your points are taken about cheating, but just because people do it, doesn't excuse it. When you get CAUGHT speeding in Atlanta, the police are happy to hand you a ticket. There are consequences to bad behaviours. Just ask Martha Stewart.
BTW - it's "exposure", not "exposer"... I keep having visions of a fisherman flashing the fish before he cyanides it (had to choose my words carefully there.... some of our euphemisms might have made a bad double-entendre there!) :lol: Nothing like having the fish go blind first.... :lol:
Personally, I got tired of fish dying in my store or en route, for "no apparent reason" so I dumped all of the wholesalers I was buying from. Of course all insisted that they ONLY sell net-caught fishes (riiiiiiiighhht) - so even if they were truthful (place tongue firmly in cheek here), they were doing something wrong along the way, either handling, holding or packing was detrimental.
The most expensive fish is a dead one, so as well as a moral and ethical decision, an ECONOMIC decision was made, and the decrease in mortality and "LLS" syndrome, as you so aptly called it, became almost a non-issue. I do lose the occasional fish, or have the occasional DOA - but back in the day I used to fax a REPORT to "Big Box Fish 'R' Us" every week when I'd receive an order. Now, IF something croaks in transit, I drop an email to my vendor as an FYI so they can keep track of what's travelling well and what isn't, but I haven't had to claim DOA credits in many many months, and even at that, I blame the last DOAs I had on the fact that I am sure that the airline stored my shipment in their cooler.
What I take exception to in your skewed logic, is that if such a small percentage of fishes (your presumed 5%) are cyanide caught, that its:
A) OK to screw your customers 5% of the time.
B) OK to damage the reefs in larger proportion, because you only get a small percentage of the poisoned fish and somebody else gets stuck with the bodies along the way and after the fact.
C) Everybody's doing it, so what the heck.
BTW not "everybody" is doing it....
It's really ironic that you are that curious as to why hobbyists might be losing fish after the fact, but you care that little about how they are captured in the first place.
The bottom line is, no wild caught fish removed from the reef is ever coming back. As far as the reef is concerned, that fish is dead. If the fish lives a day, a year, a decade, makes NO difference to the environment it left, EXCEPT if the means to collect it, destroyed other organisms and habitat.
Fish dying in hobbists tanks does occur for many many reasons, we all know that. If you'd like to discuss stressors, diseases, treatments, quarantines, I'm up for that, but I don't think that was your agenda, given your subject line.
It's about sustainability. Can the reef support ongoing collection? Can the fishers continue to earn a living from that reef, without depeleting it, and thus destroying their own livelihood, as well as a complex ecosystem?
I'd like to see the trade continue indefinitely with proven methods and safe techniques, safer for the collector, safer for the creatures that remain on the reef - in a sustainable way that keeps the reef healthy, the fisher healthy and the trade healthy for years and years to come.
Why is it so hard for you to embrace that concept?
I am one of the few people on this board that supports MAC. You all have the mind set that doing nothing is better then what MAC is doing. [NOT ME} I am ready for a new set of cyanide tests and so are the collectors. I like what MAC is doing..... You all are the people constantly criticizing their efforts. As for your experience with suppliers ...... Your reply above clearly illustrates my point. YOU are even blaming cyanide fish as the reason why your last supplier had poor fish to sell. To dwell on cyanide is a waist of time if you really want to increase the survival rates on MO fish. Because the vast majority of MO fish deaths are not from cyanide. Secondly, there are not enough MO fish collected each year to have much of an effect on the reefs in PI .Yes, if all the fishing is concentrated in a few hundred square miles then it might. But its 25,000 square kilometers. Even if we only collect from one-third of the reefs in PI ........its only one fish a day from each square mile of reef. {and one out of two of those fish is a damsel} No matter how you slice it its tiny.
As far as the question of is it OK to sell cyanide fish five percent of the time ......The answer is no .......... but is it all right to sell net collected fish that are going to die from handling stress......30% of the time ......Remember, 95% of the time a fish dies its not due to cyanide. The best gain that can be made from ending all cyanide {if it was possible} fish from making it to market.........is 5% . Yet if we focused on non cyanide stress issues ......like airfreight......we could save ten times more little fishies.......... You want to save five percent of the fish ........I want to save 95% of the fish.... :wink:
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