Borneman's Reefkeeping Magazine article

[dizzy]

I'm going to put this back on topic a bit. Eric states that by some estimates the ornamental fish trade is worth billions per year. He must have gotten that from an article Doug Robbins wrote in Advanced Aquarist on advances in aquaculture, http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/media because Eric sites that article as a source of inspiration for Coralmania. The following is a quote from that article.

" We will have another chance. The front page story in West Hawaii Today of July 26, 2005 reads "Marine biologist receives grants to raise reef fish." Carolyn Lucas reports that expert marine hatchery biologist Syd Kraul, owner of Pacific Planktonics at the Natural Energy Laboratory here, is researching ways to successfully produce high value ornamental reef fish in captivity for the aquarium industry. Estimates are that the market has a potential annual worth up to $15 billion worldwide."

I have to agree with Steve on this one. A lot of the inflated numbers we see on the trade come from the business plans of people seeking grants. If spawner is reading this I want to point out that they are suggesting the cultured fish market has a potential $15 billion dollar value. They are not including supplies. At least it doesn't appear that way to me. If you believe the 30% per year growth figure I guess you can get from $200 million to $15 billion. I have to admit it does sound good in the business plan when you are seeking investors. :wink:

PS
Here is Eric's quote from Coralmania: "The global wholesale trade in marine species for aquaria amounts to $200-330 million, with some retail estimates today in the billions, and includes primarily fish, corals, sponges, anemones, mollusks, crustaceans and live rock"

 

[Kalkbreath]

What is the point of estimating the number of collectors in PI?
Its the number of fish removed and gallons of cyanide sprayed on their reefs thats of importance.
One again the "ex-spurts" numbers are so over the top that simple math will dislodge what little credibility they had before they opened their spouts.
There cant be more then a few hundred collectors working in PI for our trade...........
Lets count backwards from data we can count quite easily.
One, the number of fish entering the USA and
there are less then two thousand boxes of PI fish landing in LA each week.
I understand that Los Angeles is not the only place Philippine fish land in America, But its most likely the source of 70 percent.
If All the other ports of entry are counted up as well, we might reach about 2500 boxes per week on average.
With around 100 fish per box, 2500 boxes is 250,000 fish .
Fifty-two weeks a year, would total 14 million fish.
But most "experts" are estimating that the USA only imports about 6 million fish from PI.
You cant have more then a few hundred collectors collecting fish for the USA market if we are only importing 6 million fish.
The average single box of 100 fish FOB LAX would not support the average collector based on what the collectors receive per fish . Therefore each collectors would need to collect several boxes of fish each week or he would starve with such little return on a weeks fishing.
Hell, I thought cyanide fishing could produce thousands of fish each squirt!
With 2500 to 4000 collectors........are these fishermen really collecting only half a box per week?
Ten fish a day times 2500 collectors?
Ten fish are worth about thirty cents when sold to the brokers.
You so called experts need to connect the dots .
Either the number of PI fish entering the world is greater in Europe then the United States, or the true number of collectors working in PI is actually a few hundred not thousands.
:wink:

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, With regard to the number of fish and the number of collectors, I think you have it right this time.

Peter Rubec

 

[Kalkbreath]

So 2500 collectors are each only collecting on average one boxof fish per collector ,every seven days?
2500 collectors multiplied by 100 fish per box = 250,000 fish
250,000 fish times 50 weeks is 12.5 million fish.
12.5 million fish would represent both the USA, Half the total world market( 4 to 8M) and all other
markets (8 to 4M)Europe,Germany Asia, etc.)
Its more then likely that the USA is responsible for 70 perent of the world market for PI fish. Most other nations seem to dislike PI fish and seek out Tonga Hawaii Fiji etc as a source for MO fish.

There fore the 2500 Philippino collectors would need to only export one half a box of fish per week to supply the world market.
Do we really think Pi fisheremn are cyanide fishing and collecting a scant ten fish a day?
The Food fish market is exporting 50,000 kilos of live fish each year to Hong Kong and fishermen would choose to work in the MO trade at ten five cent fish a day?

 

[clarionreef]

Outsiders may estimate;
"With around 100 fish per box, 2500 boxes is 250,000 fish .
Fifty-two weeks a year, would total 14 million fish. "

But if you talk to any diver they will tell you that 52 weeks a year is impossible and the working weeks are more like 30 per year.
Between storms, wind and holidays....
There is no such thing as a 52 week work schedule.
Futhermore... all the catch totals linked to such estimates...can get way off as well.
This is but small example of how numbers get used and skewed.
Steve

 

[spawner]

Mitch,

I told Dr. Robbins what I thought about his paper a month ago.


I really hope Syd is able to rear yellow tangs past 40 days.

andy

 

[Kalkbreath]

Outsiders may estimate;
"With around 100 fish per box, 2500 boxes is 250,000 fish .
Fifty-two weeks a year, would total 14 million fish. "

But if you talk to any diver they will tell you that 52 weeks a year is impossible and the working weeks are more like 30 per year.
Between storms, wind and holidays....
There is no such thing as a 52 week work schedule.
Futhermore... all the catch totals linked to such estimates...can get way off as well.
This is but small example of how numbers get used and skewed.
Steve

so whats your guess as to the maximum number of collectors that a ten million fish maket can support?
Would it really make any difference if all 10,000,000 fish were collected by twenty fishermen?
What does the number of collectors have to do with anything?
It seems that reeformers like this 4500 collectors in PI thing because it sounds so much more destructive.
What if I state that 4500 people work for ORA?
Does that change the scope of what they do?Do they save more reefs the more employees they use?

 

[clarionreef]

Right you are...
There are probably no more then 1,400 or so in P.I....and Ferdie Cruz estimates even less.
MANY ARE GONE AND NOT REPLACED. OTHERS WERE SHUT DOWN BY THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS...
Pagbilao *, the historical raiding embarkation point and hub of the cyanide trade is now but a ghost of its former self. Long range raiders no longer find docile fishing communities everywhere they go now!

Steve
PS *
[Although "trained"on paper by Pijac and the Bureau of Fisheries" back in 87....in a facile attempt to brunt real reform pressure ...this effort was sheer fakery and fraud and resulted in training a few taxi drivers, carpenters and cement workers. The fisherman were all out 'fishing' when the scheduled training day arrived

 

[dizzy]

Consider it this way. If you write an artilce titled Coralmania and you claim the industry has grown 30% every year since 1999, it would not be very helpful to find recent information that shows the number of collectors is actually way down from earlier estimates. It might confuse the readers. So instead the urban legend lives on. :roll:
Mitch

 

[Anonymous]

Look at Reef Central statistics. It is, by far, the largest board on reefkeeping. It's in the top 100 internet sites (Number 73, down from 72 a week ago) If you look at the web stats for the site alone, with over 110,000 members, and you can go to bigboards to see this, you'll see a trend that closely parallels the increase inhobbyists, including number of new views per day, members, posts, etc. I'd say 110,000 is a relatively large sample size for a population and that when you deal with these numbers you are probably getting a representative sample

I know that here on RDO some members have mulitple user names and I know for a fact that RC does too but when they bann a member, they are NOT removed from the membership lists. I would also guestimate that of all those new views and posts, most are in the "for sale", "for trade", "vendor feed back", "reef clubs" and "the lounge (34pgs alone for the last 30 days)". How does "using RC's membership stats" as a gauge constitute a way of gauging hobbiest growth?
1990 US population 248,709,873
2000 US population 281,421,906
01/02/06 RC population 111,775
01/02/06 RDO populaton 24,408

Someone care to do the math?

 

[clarionreef]

Explosion of interest, the Geek-ization of America, compulsive obsessive drive to avoid "the retail experience" at all costs!
Everythings up on internet sites... 'up' out of proportion to market populations as far as the net is concerned!
Steve
PS.
There is an explosion of interest in internet porn as well. That still doesn't mean that you're gettin any.

 

[Anonymous]

more community population info, there are more sites out there but now I have a headache! :lol:
All as of todays date.
coralforum.com 2451
nanotank.com 1139
nano-reef.com 17669
zoosrus.com 1024
reeflounge.com 6,090
saltcreep.com 790

 

[Anonymous]

I dont think Borneman will ever respond on RC now that he has permanently left along with Shimek and Calfo.

 

[clarionreef]

Chris,
Where did they go?
And why?
Do you know?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Chris,
Where did they go?
And why?
Do you know?
Steve

Lots of speculation and nobody really knows and those that do know are not saying.

 

[naesco]

Chris,
Where did they go?
And why?
Do you know?
Steve

Lots of speculation and nobody really knows and those that do know are not saying.

What is some of the speculation?

Wayne

 

[dizzy]

They seem to have left for somewhat different reasons. Dr. Ron got involved in a nasty thread/agument over DSB vs BB. Eric didn't like the criticism he was receiving over Coralmania. I think he might he gotten into the fray in the DSB/BB thread too. I would have thought Eric would have been a little thicker skinned. I thought science was still subject to peer review, of some sort. I think some over at Reef Central must be more in favor of censorship than others. I heard both Dr. Ron and Eric lost their cool and acted somewhat unprofessionally. Rumor has it Eric censored the offending thread and someone else put it back as a locked thread. I believe it was later vaporized. They (RC staff) are being asked a lot of questions about it, but seem to be struggling to do effective damage control. Anthony may have had somewhat different reasons for leaving. My gut tells me it all comes down to differences of opinion of how much control the moderators should have over what the people say. All in all in sure makes me appreciate Len and rdo guys. Let freedom ring.
Mitch

 

[StevenPro]

They seem to have left for somewhat different reasons. Dr. Ron got involved in a nasty thread/agument over DSB vs BB. Eric didn't like the criticism he was receiving over Coralmania. I think he might he gotten into the fray in the DSB/BB thread too. I would have thought Eric would have been a little thicker skinned. I thought science was still subject to peer review, of some sort. I think some over at Reef Central must be more in favor of censorship than others. I heard both Dr. Ron and Eric lost their cool and acted somewhat unprofessionally. Rumor has it Eric censored the offending thread and someone else put it back as a locked thread. I believe it was later vaporized. They (RC staff) are being asked a lot of questions about it, but seem to be struggling to do effective damage control. Anthony may have had somewhat different reasons for leaving. My gut tells me it all comes down to differences of opinion of how much control the moderators should have over what the people say. All in all in sure makes me appreciate Len and rdo guys. Let freedom ring.
Mitch

I don't believe criticism of Eric's article had anything to do with it. You can see Dr. Ron's blog and read some of it for yourself, http://drrons.blogspot.com/

 

[dizzy]

You may be right Steven, but his explaination still leaves many questions. Especially for those who weren't following the thread. Who had the illegally obtained coral? I have an idea but it could be wrong. If the situation is that serious it is worth getting to the truth about it. I will say the powers that be on Reef Central have done a terrible job of handling the situation, judging from the comments of their members.
Mitch

 

[StevenPro]

People can't say too much in public as one of the characters has threatened legal action. That is likely why RC is a quiet about it as they are. But, that is only making things worse from my perspective and fanning the flames of speculation.