dizzy":3j970xu7 said:
I just can't for the life of me understand this USL thing at all. People catch and eat this stuff for goodness sake. Allowing some of it to be sacrificed actually ends up protecting more than putting it on this list.
Your sentiments and philosophy will fly over the conservationist and hobbyist community like a lead balloon, regardless if it is true or not. I fully understand your position but some middle ground has to be reached, if for no other reason than the industy/hobby's ethical responsibilities to itself. Right now everybody is looking at each other. Trying to justify mortalities within and after the chain of custody when something could be done about it is going to be a hard sell.
The issues of
unsuitable species (US) fall into two broad categories. Issues of environmental sustainability and issues of ethics and humaneness. There is also an overlapping of those categories.
Environmental Sustainability is a concern that the harvest of some species may adversely alter the ecosystem that they were removed from. In the worst case scenario species may be threatened with true or virtual extinction either locally, regionally or globally. CITES exists to prevent that from happening and one could boldly say that CITES would stop that if it were to occur. But there is an opportunity for the trade to "regulate" itself as a preemption to CITES action or State and Federal legislation. Regardless, determinations are going to have to be conducted as real science or they will not be regarded as meaningful on the world's stage.
Ethics and Humaneness is a concern that some species have such poor ability to adapt to captivity that it is unethical to trade them because of the mortality that consumers will experience with them. Many hobbyists quickly develop an emotional attachment to their reef animals that begins to expand outwards to all reef animals everywhere. When they realize that with some species great numbers of them must be collected in order for a statistically low number to thrive in aquariums they often become incensed and disillusioned with what is going on. In the big picture, there are really not that many species that firmly fall into that category. And for the most part, market demands have kept their trade to relatively low numbers anyway.
Concerning MAC and US: As outlined in its standards and mission MAC will be forming an US Committee to evaluate and make determinations about declaring certain species as unsuitable and consequently un-certifiable. There are already provisions in the MAC standards for exception to this, one being bonafide research into how US could be converted to suitable. How this would be accomplished has not been worked out yet, but will be. Even still, this does not mean that US could not be brought to the marketplace, only that they could not be certified. MAC Certified industry operators are allowed to trade in non-certified species, they just cannot trade them as being certified.
Personally, I do not believe that US should or need to be a part of HR 4928. Ethical issues are best handled by the trade itself. Environmental issues of local or global threats to extinction of species is already the domain of CITES. But the trade or associated organizations can act more quickly and specifically to these threats than CITES by means of sustainability programs.
Obviously, there are a thousand facets to this that deserve to be discussed and opinions and facts need to be heard.
These MAC people are supposed to be scientists for Christ sake.
For Christ sake no they are not. In general, MAC staff are comprised of a variety of skills and education some of which are scientists. MAC contracts scientists for reef surveys and evaluations of sustainability. In the case of ecosystem sustainability issues scientists need to be a major part of determinations. But in the case of ethical issues, scientists would seem to have no better input than any other person involved in the trade or hobby unless there are some specific questions that can be best answered by science.
