Blah blah blah. MAC's rep hasn't had his own original thought in years, and continues to spoon feed us their idiotic propaganda. His nemesis works the same tactic from the extreme opposite side of the spectrum. Where are the honest moderates who can both speak truth and accomplish something other than grandstanding and the airbrushing of the real issues.
Pet Product News Editorial
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clarionreef
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JeremyR":3uoj4wmi said:
You've got the microphone and the forum is all ears. Say something without the appearance of grandstanding or airbrushing. If anyone accuses you of such, regardless of their logic, then you did. Good luck.
We'll overlook the possibility that a loud cry for non-grandstanding may be regarded as grandstanding itself.
clarionreef
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I agree with John ,
It is easier to be thought a fool then to open the moUth and remove all doubt.
Ignore John and I Jeremy...
Hold forth on the Industry behind the hobby. WE.RE ARE READY TO LEARN.
Steve
It is easier to be thought a fool then to open the moUth and remove all doubt.
Ignore John and I Jeremy...
Hold forth on the Industry behind the hobby. WE.RE ARE READY TO LEARN.
Steve
Heh, ok, I'll start with steve:
"I don't sell cyanide."
"I have bali & phillipine fish on my list."
I've bought from you, and your fish were lower quality than the big boys in LA. Therefore, I feel that you simply use this forum as a schtick to further your business and your own agenda.
JB: If I knew all the answers, I would put them forth. I do know that office people who have no connections to this trade aren't helping us any. The MAC fish also have a very poor reputation, and after all this time we are still at ground zero. The end result is the retailer is still getting the same crap. I think fish quality was better in the early 90's when I started in this business and that was supposed to be the height of cyanide abuse in the phillipines.
"I don't sell cyanide."
"I have bali & phillipine fish on my list."
I've bought from you, and your fish were lower quality than the big boys in LA. Therefore, I feel that you simply use this forum as a schtick to further your business and your own agenda.
JB: If I knew all the answers, I would put them forth. I do know that office people who have no connections to this trade aren't helping us any. The MAC fish also have a very poor reputation, and after all this time we are still at ground zero. The end result is the retailer is still getting the same crap. I think fish quality was better in the early 90's when I started in this business and that was supposed to be the height of cyanide abuse in the phillipines.
clarionreef
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Jere,
Your alledged sample of small shipments would have told you very little and if something were not right you would have A] not ordered again or B] claiimed some DOA.
Your axe to grind comes from the E-Tail thing and you know it. I'm not keen on drop- shipping fish in the mail and you take that as a slight on your thing of shipping your frags in the mail.
As a central flea market trader of frags at every conference...you scarcely don't attend the forums or a reform presentations. Since you never take the time to do this....where in lies your keen insight?
You have no idea what you're talking about and nothing to contribute.
If anyone wants, they can take a sec and scroll thru your greatest hits on this forum. They are virtually all short, snippy, snide one liners with no substance whatsoever.
Aside from wanting more perfect fish for yourself to sell...I still haven't a clue on what, if anything you believe in.
Steve
Your
Your alledged sample of small shipments would have told you very little and if something were not right you would have A] not ordered again or B] claiimed some DOA.
Your axe to grind comes from the E-Tail thing and you know it. I'm not keen on drop- shipping fish in the mail and you take that as a slight on your thing of shipping your frags in the mail.
As a central flea market trader of frags at every conference...you scarcely don't attend the forums or a reform presentations. Since you never take the time to do this....where in lies your keen insight?
You have no idea what you're talking about and nothing to contribute.
If anyone wants, they can take a sec and scroll thru your greatest hits on this forum. They are virtually all short, snippy, snide one liners with no substance whatsoever.
Aside from wanting more perfect fish for yourself to sell...I still haven't a clue on what, if anything you believe in.
Steve
Your
For what it's worth, I have never drop shipped livestock EVER. The etail thing doesn't bother me at all.. I make virtually no money in etail, it's less than 1% of my business. And if you noticed, the central trading of frags at the last few conferences was 100% true aquaculture.
I believe in quality livestock and results. I haven't seen any results.. but a continual slip into the abyss. I don't have a problem with people talking about the subject if anything were ever accomplished.. it's just that after YEARS of the same BS and no changes of merit, it gets hard to stomach after awhile.
I believe in quality livestock and results. I haven't seen any results.. but a continual slip into the abyss. I don't have a problem with people talking about the subject if anything were ever accomplished.. it's just that after YEARS of the same BS and no changes of merit, it gets hard to stomach after awhile.
clarionreef
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Huh?
The discussion about fixing fish quality and environmental problems is 'HARD TO STOMACH" after awhile?
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER DONE ONE SINGLE VOLUNTEER THING IN THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS...have little right to pass judgement on those that do.
AND PEOPLE WHO KNOW AS LITTLE AS YOU DO ABOUT WHERE AND HOW FISH GET HERE EVEN LESS.
The futher and deeper that fish come to us because of the sabatoge of nearby areas has worked against the quality of fish more then anything.
The destruction of nearby habitat makes the longer distances traveled subject the fish to more heat and more ammonia then ever before.
The lack of training and decompression and fish handling skills for all the newbies that have jumped into the trade also work against the quality picture and the new greeenies in the trade are the least experienced of all.
So the cyanide trade, who has more experience in handling and packing suit you just fine. Often, they do produce good fish its true. ..afterall, killing coral habitat only matters to very few retailers.
This is exactly the thing that MAC, MAMTIand RPI need to see.
This is the demand side folks. ..in all its glory.
Fish merchants want triple mark-ups this for weekend and there is nothing you can say that can hold their attention compared to that. Futhermore, against all the odds, they want perfect fish for that lower price.
With their limited fish skills, they have observed that many fish are not perfect.
Wow! How simple it is to observe that...compared to how difficult to train poor fisherman to achieve it.
You have noticed this Jeremy? That there are a lot of poorer quality fish out there? Is there one single thing you can contribute beyond an observation that anyone can make?
...oh, sorry, you said you were tired of the discussion.
Steve
The discussion about fixing fish quality and environmental problems is 'HARD TO STOMACH" after awhile?
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER DONE ONE SINGLE VOLUNTEER THING IN THEIR LIVES FOR OTHERS...have little right to pass judgement on those that do.
AND PEOPLE WHO KNOW AS LITTLE AS YOU DO ABOUT WHERE AND HOW FISH GET HERE EVEN LESS.
The futher and deeper that fish come to us because of the sabatoge of nearby areas has worked against the quality of fish more then anything.
The destruction of nearby habitat makes the longer distances traveled subject the fish to more heat and more ammonia then ever before.
The lack of training and decompression and fish handling skills for all the newbies that have jumped into the trade also work against the quality picture and the new greeenies in the trade are the least experienced of all.
So the cyanide trade, who has more experience in handling and packing suit you just fine. Often, they do produce good fish its true. ..afterall, killing coral habitat only matters to very few retailers.
This is exactly the thing that MAC, MAMTIand RPI need to see.
This is the demand side folks. ..in all its glory.
Fish merchants want triple mark-ups this for weekend and there is nothing you can say that can hold their attention compared to that. Futhermore, against all the odds, they want perfect fish for that lower price.
With their limited fish skills, they have observed that many fish are not perfect.
Wow! How simple it is to observe that...compared to how difficult to train poor fisherman to achieve it.
You have noticed this Jeremy? That there are a lot of poorer quality fish out there? Is there one single thing you can contribute beyond an observation that anyone can make?
...oh, sorry, you said you were tired of the discussion.
Steve
clarionreef
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- San Francisco
But LEE
We are all on different pages quite logically;
Retailers naturally have a more suburban world view
Importers live near airports and deal w' importers in other countries
Hobbyists are....so varied now as to defy definition
Different world views, business motives, hobbyist passions and you suggest they are perhaps easy to put on the same page?
One thing howevr I can guarantee you;
At any hobbyist conference ie IMAC or MACNA, the least attended presentation will be anything with an environmental theme in it.
Lighting, water chemistry, coral care talks etc will fill up...compared to those topics, anything regarding the actual cause of reefs will come in dead last every time.
Only when frontloaded early in a conference without competition from the rest of the show... will they come.
Business obsession is simply the reverse of the hobbyist obsession with having, coveting and hoping for some really cool corals now.
In fact...as Scott Michael notes, hes about the only fish guy left.
Interest in these fish conservation issues have waned as the reef culture has taken hold. Its just an empiracle observation.
Steve
We are all on different pages quite logically;
Retailers naturally have a more suburban world view
Importers live near airports and deal w' importers in other countries
Hobbyists are....so varied now as to defy definition
Different world views, business motives, hobbyist passions and you suggest they are perhaps easy to put on the same page?
One thing howevr I can guarantee you;
At any hobbyist conference ie IMAC or MACNA, the least attended presentation will be anything with an environmental theme in it.
Lighting, water chemistry, coral care talks etc will fill up...compared to those topics, anything regarding the actual cause of reefs will come in dead last every time.
Only when frontloaded early in a conference without competition from the rest of the show... will they come.
Business obsession is simply the reverse of the hobbyist obsession with having, coveting and hoping for some really cool corals now.
In fact...as Scott Michael notes, hes about the only fish guy left.
Interest in these fish conservation issues have waned as the reef culture has taken hold. Its just an empiracle observation.
Steve
clarionreef
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- Location
- San Francisco
No Lee,
"Our own" suggests unity of purpose or some shared moral, ethical precepts... to me at least in this Industry forum.
Otherwise, you would have to call distributors of drums of poison to poor fisherman "our own "as well.
Afterall, they communicate daily with our own here in the US and they have a wide and wonderful following .
We are extremely different on issues regarding the institutional killing of old coral habitat and supporting it thru our daily purchases...if you can find a way to reconcile these polar views on the environment and the trade, I'd love to hear more of it.
Steve
"Our own" suggests unity of purpose or some shared moral, ethical precepts... to me at least in this Industry forum.
Otherwise, you would have to call distributors of drums of poison to poor fisherman "our own "as well.
Afterall, they communicate daily with our own here in the US and they have a wide and wonderful following .
We are extremely different on issues regarding the institutional killing of old coral habitat and supporting it thru our daily purchases...if you can find a way to reconcile these polar views on the environment and the trade, I'd love to hear more of it.
Steve
I don't think you really have any idea if anyone on this board has ever done any volunteer work.
Limited fish skills.. that's true for the average store, but again you don't know who you are talking too.. we hold all fish for at least a week, generally 2 or more.. some are in the store for months. No fish are ever sold out of the bag. While DOA #'s are important, I'm just as interested in DAA. Of course my goal is to provide healthy fish, and I don't see that I should apologize for that.
Actually the cyanide trade doesn't suit me fine. If you had been able to keep my business, you would have seen that my buying patterns are pretty specific, and very rarely drift to fish that are cyanide targets or from cyanide regions. There are entire lots of popular indopac fish that never make it into my store. This greatly affects how much money I can make, and my customers complain about it all the time. If I wanted to sell out, I would buy everything and have it cleaned out of the store into happy customers hands by sunday night... everyone would be happy, and I'd be richer.
The problem isn't having a discussion, it's incessant horse beating to no end.. it's standing on a soapbox yelling about reform while selling fish from the same suppliers as the people you rail against. I don't care if you have a problem with my lack posting in this forum, but you really are off base in the buttons you are trying to find to push. I guess I pushed yours pretty well tho...
That was more than a 1 liner of sarcasm... ya happy now?
Limited fish skills.. that's true for the average store, but again you don't know who you are talking too.. we hold all fish for at least a week, generally 2 or more.. some are in the store for months. No fish are ever sold out of the bag. While DOA #'s are important, I'm just as interested in DAA. Of course my goal is to provide healthy fish, and I don't see that I should apologize for that.
Actually the cyanide trade doesn't suit me fine. If you had been able to keep my business, you would have seen that my buying patterns are pretty specific, and very rarely drift to fish that are cyanide targets or from cyanide regions. There are entire lots of popular indopac fish that never make it into my store. This greatly affects how much money I can make, and my customers complain about it all the time. If I wanted to sell out, I would buy everything and have it cleaned out of the store into happy customers hands by sunday night... everyone would be happy, and I'd be richer.
The problem isn't having a discussion, it's incessant horse beating to no end.. it's standing on a soapbox yelling about reform while selling fish from the same suppliers as the people you rail against. I don't care if you have a problem with my lack posting in this forum, but you really are off base in the buttons you are trying to find to push. I guess I pushed yours pretty well tho...
That was more than a 1 liner of sarcasm... ya happy now?
clarionreef
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- San Francisco
But Jere,
Your soap box in defense of your business was exactly what I ment.
Can you discuss any of this without reference to you and your business.?
You are not the point and grandstanding your claims about your business could lead to others doing the same thing.
If I were to follow suit I would tell you of the netcatchers in Bali and the Philippines that you so matter of factly paint with the same brush as cyanide dealers. To the ones that have received death threats specifically, they would find your nonsense and ignorance of things beyond LA gossip insulting.
The Bali villages that you say are the same...are not either. They are the ones leading the way and using nets supplied to them from here.
Thats too close to personal business grandstanding and I apologize for it.
The need to claim they are all the same despite years of work is merely a need to justify continuing what you do with out remorse.
The leader of the main netcaught village in Bali that visited us all in a conference was surprised to see how "only commerce mattered to the Americans" and the interest in breaking the mold was so low.
He thought that the professed environmental sentiment would lead to behavioural change.
As embarrassing as it was, I advised him he'd better focus on beating the cyanide trade at their own game and producing better quality fish and working on better variety for very close to the same price.
If you are 10% above the cyanide fish price bench-mark, very few retailers will ever support you. They will buy cyanide caught Bangai cardinals and resent you for pointing it out.
Repeat; "They will buy cyanide caught Bangai cardinals and resent you for pointing it out."
[ which is why we NEVER have them at my place... bragging of what we don't have ...sorry! ]
They will be upset if you speak of limiting choices and sticking to only clean fish. They will not decline a blue tang on moral grounds....they cannot and will not because they are just not that concerned beyond the fluff they're fed by their routine suppliers.
If one or two are, they are punished for their restraint...and the rest; the crasser, less concerned dealers will enjoy a better variety and competitive edge every time.
The demand side will not help much...I told him. They will not handicap themselves while all the others flea market junk fish and cyanide fish with pure commercial abandon.
You need to stop killing the reefs for your own reasons. Homegrown reasons.
Indonesian and Filipino reasons need to lead this thing because the Americans are not willing to do without until things change painlessly and effortlessly. So...they're not making much effort in getting it right .... justifying continuing with the status quo.
Which leads to the lack of quick, clear-cut victories that lightly involved people need to make themselves feel better.
Steve
Your soap box in defense of your business was exactly what I ment.
Can you discuss any of this without reference to you and your business.?
You are not the point and grandstanding your claims about your business could lead to others doing the same thing.
If I were to follow suit I would tell you of the netcatchers in Bali and the Philippines that you so matter of factly paint with the same brush as cyanide dealers. To the ones that have received death threats specifically, they would find your nonsense and ignorance of things beyond LA gossip insulting.
The Bali villages that you say are the same...are not either. They are the ones leading the way and using nets supplied to them from here.
Thats too close to personal business grandstanding and I apologize for it.
The need to claim they are all the same despite years of work is merely a need to justify continuing what you do with out remorse.
The leader of the main netcaught village in Bali that visited us all in a conference was surprised to see how "only commerce mattered to the Americans" and the interest in breaking the mold was so low.
He thought that the professed environmental sentiment would lead to behavioural change.
As embarrassing as it was, I advised him he'd better focus on beating the cyanide trade at their own game and producing better quality fish and working on better variety for very close to the same price.
If you are 10% above the cyanide fish price bench-mark, very few retailers will ever support you. They will buy cyanide caught Bangai cardinals and resent you for pointing it out.
Repeat; "They will buy cyanide caught Bangai cardinals and resent you for pointing it out."
[ which is why we NEVER have them at my place... bragging of what we don't have
...sorry! ]They will be upset if you speak of limiting choices and sticking to only clean fish. They will not decline a blue tang on moral grounds....they cannot and will not because they are just not that concerned beyond the fluff they're fed by their routine suppliers.
If one or two are, they are punished for their restraint...and the rest; the crasser, less concerned dealers will enjoy a better variety and competitive edge every time.
The demand side will not help much...I told him. They will not handicap themselves while all the others flea market junk fish and cyanide fish with pure commercial abandon.
You need to stop killing the reefs for your own reasons. Homegrown reasons.
Indonesian and Filipino reasons need to lead this thing because the Americans are not willing to do without until things change painlessly and effortlessly. So...they're not making much effort in getting it right .... justifying continuing with the status quo.
Which leads to the lack of quick, clear-cut victories that lightly involved people need to make themselves feel better.
Steve
So Steve, since you feel MAC is such a failure, why don't we let the next runner up organization attempt to solve the problems...... Would that be BFAR? that would be real effective. or who? will you ever acknowledge anything positive that MAC has accomplished? Do you feel there are any exporters in the Philippines that want reform? If so, I'm dying to know who they are, or is that an industry secret and proprietary info? and for the rest of you who do not think MAC has any "fish people", they have now for several months, and we are making progress..... more so than any other organization interested in coral reef conservation AND keeping OUR industry alive. I'm open for questions,comments and concerns.
The amount of collective knowledge here is incredible, it's too bad we can't all work together to achieve what we all know needs to be done.
Mark
The amount of collective knowledge here is incredible, it's too bad we can't all work together to achieve what we all know needs to be done.
Mark
clarionreef
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- San Francisco
Mark,
The revelation [ or admission ] that there are now fish people aboard...and have been for several months is what we have spent years discussing.
Thanks for letting us know that the years of constructive criticsm were correct and that non-fish people were ruining ...er...running the show.
If now begins a new and competent day...then what was the budget and last 5 years spent on?
Now, you are the lone fish guy in a milliuon dollar bureaucracy. Good luck!
Steve
The revelation [ or admission ] that there are now fish people aboard...and have been for several months is what we have spent years discussing.
Thanks for letting us know that the years of constructive criticsm were correct and that non-fish people were ruining ...er...running the show.
If now begins a new and competent day...then what was the budget and last 5 years spent on?
Now, you are the lone fish guy in a milliuon dollar bureaucracy. Good luck!
Steve
Mark,
Lately as steve pointed out I've mostly been a sarcastic cynical poster.. but back in the day, alot of people were giving constructive, positive input to MAC, and it was all ignored and whitewashed for years. Maybe if people had thought they were being listened to with some respect, we wouldn't all have animosity toward MAC now. It's a two way street. Most of the info we see posted on the behalf of MAC reads like a used car ad type of propaganda. All I want to see is some real progress. Nobody thinks there is an instant fix.. we just want to believe that something is actually being accomplished, and there hasn't been alot of evidence of that. The behind the scenes stuff like mamti doesn't help your cause either....
Lately as steve pointed out I've mostly been a sarcastic cynical poster.. but back in the day, alot of people were giving constructive, positive input to MAC, and it was all ignored and whitewashed for years. Maybe if people had thought they were being listened to with some respect, we wouldn't all have animosity toward MAC now. It's a two way street. Most of the info we see posted on the behalf of MAC reads like a used car ad type of propaganda. All I want to see is some real progress. Nobody thinks there is an instant fix.. we just want to believe that something is actually being accomplished, and there hasn't been alot of evidence of that. The behind the scenes stuff like mamti doesn't help your cause either....
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