THE IRRESPONSIBILTY OF PUBLIC AQUARIUMS

[clarionreef]

Public complicity and irresponsibility among all the rest of the players;

Actually if the huge fish buying public aquarium sector would join us....the cause would be futhered.
However, public aquariums are some of the worlds biggest supporters of the status quo ...AND EDUCATORS ON CONSERVATION.
Why should they get a free pass for all their mega subsidy of the cyanide trade?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

heh - Good point.. - If only they were truly PUBLIC that might be fairly easily solved with a minority (yet loud) voice.

But.. - Aren't most of them either privately funded or even self-sustaining entities that don't really have those types of strings hanging around to tug on?

 

[clarionreef]

How easy to do the right thing then.
How easy for them to go clean.
How simple for them to push and promote and insist on sustainable livestock....and put their money where their mouth is.
The Philippine reef exhibit in the Shedd aquarium alone could have solved all the industrys environmental ill practices with 20 million left over.
It is stocked with cyanide caught fish.
Steve

 

[jhemdal1]

Hey Steve,

So what prompted this thread title, or are you just trolling? You need to read section five of my book, "Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques". It discusses ethics and aquariums. There is also a section on public aquariums that might be help enlighten you as well.
Public aquariums are not a "huge fish buying sector" - at least the good ones aren't - we buy fish and keep 'em alive, so very little repeat business for folks like you.

I'm just finishing up with an interesting study - I received a shipment of "pet store" quality fish and inverts that had been confiscated by USFWS when it was attempted to export it to Canada improperly. It contained 80 specimens, a random assortment - mostly stuff I know better than to order. Just days before, I brought in two other shipments consisting of 35 animals I had selected myself off 104 street stocklists. Some were MAC, other fish from good origins, species known to thrive, etc.
In a nutshell - 51% of the "pet store" quality animals died within the first 60 days. 12% of the fish I picked out died during the same time, in the same quarantine systems. The difference? A public aquarist selected the fish that mostly lived, and a pet store employee ordered the ones that mostly died..... I'd say it is the pet stores that are the status quo here - The pet store fish in this shipment were the same ones that I see over and over again in every LFS in this area: Cleaner wrasse, tiny Centropyge, Harlequin sweetlips, tiny damsels, skinny tangs, flame scallops, wild caught clowns with Brook, it is disgusting.

Jay Hemdal

 

[bookfish]

I don't post much but I just wanted to say that Steve is lucky enough to work in a top notch wholesaler. What you say about the quality of fish LFS' receive however is definitely believable on average.-Jim

 

[clarionreef]

Hello Jay,
I remember a nice letter to the editor you sent to FAMA magazine when I was doing the Philippine thing...back in the 80's....thankyou!
Your support was one of the only ones I got from the public aquarium sector.
I am well aware that not all public aquariums are the same.

Actually I had the mega aquarium projects in mind that spend dozens of millions to set up...and stock.
Some will spend more on a filter then would take to overhaul the industry.
The cost of the new Philippine fish exhibit at the Shedd is a mindblowing figure. It could have trained every diver in the Philippines 20X over on the cost of the filters alone.
The Atlanta aquarium...is not exactly a roadside zoo either...and their Home Depot sugardaddy can clean up any thing in this trade he chooses.

Surely they can do more then run the obligatory seafood watch list in their on-site restaurant, raise a few sharks and seahorses and give a token acceptance of the MAC debacle.
Surely some of them have such buying power as to be able to command respect, attention and change.
As a wholesaler myself...I know what it means to win a bid to stock a new aquarium. Public aquariums have buying power and respect of importers. They can demand netcaught fishes...and yet in my experience...never have.
They pour their money into the "normal system" while promoting conservation themes as if the duplicitousness of doing that ment nothing.
Is not ones own behavior what counts first?
Steve

 

[PeterIMA]

Bookfish stated that 51% mortality on fish purchased by LFS on average was believable. It is strange that I have been attacked for making such claims based on information provided by Frank Lallo. Admittedly, Frank never provided me with all of his data. But, the data I have been collecting from my present study confirms that fishes can die from a variety of factors.

Lets dissect what Jay Hemdal was implying about the species he received. He implied that some species are unsuitable (like Harlequin Sweetlips because they grow to big). Others come in very thin and emaciated (especially species of tangs). Others like clownfish commonly have a protozoan parasite (Broolynella) on their gills. Other factors contributing to fish mortality (even with net-caught fish) are delays by the airlines caused by fish being bumped off flights, and by fish being held up by US Customs and/or USFWS due to homeland security or other concerns. Stress due to temperature changes en route (too cold or too hot) can lead to high delayed mortalities (DAA). These problems need to be dealt with to improve the quality of fishes being purchased by the LFS. Public aquariums may be able to help with the research or with lobbying the airlines etc. Cherry picking fish is not enough.

Peter Rubec

 

[jhemdal1]

Steve,

The Shedd's Wild Reef Philippine exhibit is not as good of an example of what you are talking about as you might think. I used to work there, but long before this addition. The cost of the exhibit was high simply due to their location - they could only build underground. Many of the fish in that exhibit were actually from Australia (Same as the Georgia Aq.). My understanding was that their blue spot rays were from the Philipines, but they actually ended up working out the husbandry issues with this species and were able to keep them alive - something nobody else has done consistently.
Don't forget that the Shedd is a partner in Amanda Vicent's Project Seahorse - another grass roots campaign in the Philippines.


Jay Hemdal

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Steve,

So what prompted this thread title, or are you just trolling? You need to read section five of my book, "Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques". It discusses ethics and aquariums. There is also a section on public aquariums that might be help enlighten you as well.
Public aquariums are not a "huge fish buying sector" - at least the good ones aren't - we buy fish and keep 'em alive, so very little repeat business for folks like you.

I'm just finishing up with an interesting study - I received a shipment of "pet store" quality fish and inverts that had been confiscated by USFWS when it was attempted to export it to Canada improperly. It contained 80 specimens, a random assortment - mostly stuff I know better than to order. Just days before, I brought in two other shipments consisting of 35 animals I had selected myself off 104 street stocklists. Some were MAC, other fish from good origins, species known to thrive, etc.
In a nutshell - 51% of the "pet store" quality animals died within the first 60 days. 12% of the fish I picked out died during the same time, in the same quarantine systems. The difference? A public aquarist selected the fish that mostly lived, and a pet store employee ordered the ones that mostly died..... I'd say it is the pet stores that are the status quo here - The pet store fish in this shipment were the same ones that I see over and over again in every LFS in this area: Cleaner wrasse, tiny Centropyge, Harlequin sweetlips, tiny damsels, skinny tangs, flame scallops, wild caught clowns with Brook, it is disgusting.

Jay Hemdal

If the USFWS confiscated the animals then transferred them to you, wouldn't there have been a significant delay in getting those specimens out of the box and into a safer inviroment? I would imagine that could have an effect on mortality.

 

[PeterIMA]

Coral Addict, Delays can occur for a variety of reasons. So far, I have not had fish delayed by USFWS. I did have a shipment held up in LA by US Customs after they had cleared USFWS. The fish were held by Customs for over 24 hours. Normally, one can expect that most fish will be DOA if they are held in plastic bags for periods exceeding 50 hours.
Since, the fish had been in the boxes for over 60 hours, I paid someone to remove them in LA and to put them in their facility over the weekend. When the boxes were opened on July 14th, there were only 12 fish out of 389 DOA (about 3% mortality). This is because we have been using chemical additives in the shipping bags. However, we still had a significant delayed mortality, that I believe was due to temperature stress while they were held in LA. About 20% of the fish died at their final destinations over a period of several weeks.

Peter

 

[jhemdal1]

Coraladdict,

No - I think I took into account all of the variables (just didn't mention that in my quick post). We actually received the fish SOONER than the store in Canada would have. The fish were shipped via the typical overnight freight run from LAX to DTW and I tanked them myself by 5pm. There was one DOA. I kept a spreadsheet of all the losses in all the fish, and I'm still reviewing that, looking for trends, etc. Necropsy results indicate that about half of the pet store fish died from bacterial disease and half died from "unknown". The few non-pet store fish that died, did so a month after they were mixed with the pet store fish and all have had a really nasty Uronema infection...no lesion until after the fish has died, therefore the protozoan is intracellular and cannot be treated.

Jay Hemdal

 

[jhemdal1]

PeterIMA,

I had done a similar study 20 years ago, although the circumstances were different, the numbers were in the same order of magnitude. This is excerpted from my "Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques" book and is copyrighted 2006 by TFH publications:

In during 4 months in 1985, 448 directly imported reef fishes were tracked through the first 30 days following their importation: of this sample, 28.7% of these fish died. All fish were housed in a central water system that also held 11 control fish (None of which died during the study). 31% of the Philippine fish in the sample died. 9.3% of the non Philippine fish died. Many of the Philippine fish were hardy damselfish. When these were removed from the calculation, fully 61% of the non damsel Philippine fish died. The non Philippine fish (no hardy damsels in the samples) included those imported from Sri Lanka, Hawaii and the Seychelles.


Jay Hemdal

p.s. - the set up for this study was that I was working in a pet store that had just begun direct importations. Our customer base was still small, so the fish remained unsold for quite awhile, giving me time to make these observations. The system itself had been purchased used from Barry Hershon's Pacific Sealife Distributors (Anyone remember him?) and was state-of-the-art at the time.

 

[clarionreef]

Jay,
Shedd's Wild Reef Philippine exhibit cost $45.000.000.00 dollars to present.
45 million........
Now this may be routine infrastructure development, involving excavation or what not, but they decided that a good use for the 45 million would be what they produced....called...Shedd's Wild Philippine Reef.
This is the second 45 million dollar exhibit at Shedd in fact.
Is there any way we could convince Shedd to take over the industry reform business and run it like a business?
...Maybe we could turn this terrible image problem we all have around for a million or less.

The priorities in the promulgation of public aquariums is clearly...obviously business and profit. [ just like importers and dealers... but the dealers take all the heat for the issue!]
This is not even a criticism, but an observation about life in America.
My question is ...couldn't a sliver of what the public aquariums in America spend be somehow converted into the conversion of the trade into a sustainable one?
Isn't it obvious that the MAC/fish trade business reform thing is not bearing fruit?
How bout some new initiative w/ more serious involvement from public aquariums?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that the Shedd is a partner in Amanda Vicent's Project Seahorse - another grass roots campaign in the Philippines.


Jay Hemdal

I wish Jessica (Blue Hula) was here, she'd tell yah all about Project Seahorse, MAC and MPA's. I wouldn't use PS as a prime example like that Jay, at least not around here

 

[Anonymous]

And why attach a presonality to it, Amanda is by far not the only one involved. We don't say Paul Holthus's MAC, or Pratt's IMA, or Waynes Reeform (oh wait, we do say that one ).

 

[jhemdal1]

Or Drew Weiner's Reeef Protection International? I was just associating a name with the organization. In terms of relative worth, Depends on your POV I guess, and its just all opinion....

Jay

 

[Anonymous]

:roll: Yah, like Saying Drew's, instead of Earth Island Institute, which holds FAR more water then saying Drew