HTTP://SAVEHAWAIIANREEFS.ORG

[spawner]

Anyone heard of this group?

HTTP://SAVEHAWAIIANREEFS.ORG

Registrant:
Philip Thomas

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SAVEHAWAIIANREEFS.COM

Domain servers in listed order:
NS23.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS24.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

 

[Anonymous]

Um what a list of supporters....Snorkel Bob has two listings even His for profit and his non profit. Amazing that you can have both with nearly the same name. Now that reaks to high heaven as an abuse on a non profit

 

[clarionreef]

Sure,
We know him.
Only Snorkle Bob can make a statement as silly as 2 - 10 million fish are taken and then a year [ on the masthead] and then say that the trade is only worth 1-3 million dollars.
.

The aquarium industry generates only $1 - $3 million (according to aquarium catch reports) employing 300 – 500 people total.

That would mean the the fish in Hawaii are worth an average of less then a dollar a piece!

There are no fish in Hawaii worth less then a dollar a piece...and as we all know, the primary species is the yellow tang.
As all dealers know, yellow tangs have gone up in price and if say 5 million were taken a year then the total value of te fish will be some $40,000,000.00 a year!

Not bad for an "annual fish" and a herbivore at that!
If Snorkle Rob were correct he has just made the best case ever for the Hawaiian aquarium trade. No one had any idea how lucrative it really was for such a fast recruiting trade off !
Thanks Bob!
Steve

Isn't it illegal to knowingly falsify and lie to federal officials ?

 

[clarionreef]

Although a cheerleader for the aquarium trade with his claim that it is worth so much money for all concerned....he threatens the relevance and the validity of scientific research.
If his nonsense actually prevails, it means hysteria , hype and hyperbole trumps science in the promulgation of resource management.
It would render all research to date meaningless and it would delete marine biology as a credible vocation in Hawaii.

It will underscore the far greater importance and power of politics over rationality and reason . It would mean that strategically we need to downplay research and science and increase the appeal to economics, no?
Steve

 

[spawner]

The new proposed bill seems quite a bit better written then the old one.

 

[Anonymous]

That it does Andy and it's a shame SB had to be involved in such a process.

Steve, surely it is, just look at Bonds and company. What is it that they are on trial for...it's not the dope!

 

[rgbmatt]

Yes, Snorkel Bob & co. are still working hard to kill our business.

Now, they want to amend the bill to make aquarium permits non-transferrable and non-renewable. Normally, our permits need to be renewed each year, meaning that the Oahu fishery would be completely killed as of 2009.

Looks like we've got a lot of work to do.

 

[rgbmatt]

The latest news over here is that Snorkel Bob has just started putting out TV commercials with his usual rhetoric, claiming that we take 10 million fish a year and 60% of them die. Which are all lies of course, but the general public doesn't know this - many people are likely to blindly follow along.

Does this fit under the definition of libel?

 

[Anonymous]

How about getting Charles at the aquarium involved?

 

[naesco]

The latest news over here is that Snorkel Bob has just started putting out TV commercials with his usual rhetoric, claiming that we take 10 million fish a year and 60% of them die. Which are all lies of course, but the general public doesn't know this - many people are likely to blindly follow along.

Does this fit under the definition of libel?

No but you can rally together in unity and also do TV ads:
Justifying the continued collection of fish like the Hawaiian cleaner wrasse which have no chance of survival in hobbyist's tanks.
Justifying the collection of those cute full belly yellow tangs that arrive in LFS emaciated and covered with black ich.
Justifying etcetera, etcetera etcetera.

Or maybe industry can get together AND CLEAN UP THEIR ACT before we see similar ads on the mainland and we are doomed.

 

[rgbmatt]

Wayne,

What on earth is wrong with you? Why do you insist on constantly attacking us? The Hawaiian aquarium industry is one of the best in the world - the ones you should be criticizing are the 3rd world countries that use cyanide and hold their divers in indentured servitude.

I don't collect cleaner wrasse or tiny yellow tangs, and neither do any of my friends. Stop lumping real collectors in with the few idiots who make bad decisions.

Snorkel Bob doesn't give a damn about whether we're responsible collectors or not. It doesn't matter whether we're doing a bad job or a good one - he is on a personal vendetta against the entire aquarium trade and is willing to blatantly lie about us in order to put us out of business. He is your enemy just as much as ours.

The website in this thread is another underhanded attempt to kill the industry under the guise of regulation. By clicking on the "submit testimony" link, you send an e-mail to the state legislature that proposed a bunch of harmful amendments to the bill, which in its current state represents a real attempt by the industry and the state to sustainably manage our fishery. Snorkel Bob wants to destroy this progress and back us into a corner where we're no longer able to operate.

Among the amendments included is a provision to remove any funding for monitoring and assessment of the fishery, which needs to be done in order to see if the regulations are working. The only reason I can imagine for this is that he's afraid of us proving that we're really not doing any harm.

From Wikipedia:

In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation.

 

[Anonymous]

Oy -

Wayne, cut it out.


rgbmatt,

I don't envy your problem. I look at the video ads on the website - are those the same ones running on tv? We had a similar situation, not fish related, in our town, and we were never able to change the opinions that were made from bs ads.

I don't know what advice to possibly give you except it needs to be as big as possible. Speak to a lawyer if you already haven't, and please keep us posted.

 

[naesco]

Great that you and your friends are ethical collectors.

The point of my comment is as follows and Thales alluded to it.

If industry waits until those that seek to shut it down go public , the hobby will be doomed.

For example, if clips of the documentary on cyanide that I saw, were part of a nationwide ad condemning our hobby, there would be nothing we could do or say in our defence.

Wayne

 

[dizzy]

The web site claims three out of four people writting in about the bill are in favor of it. When someone does write in opposed to the bill, people like Wayne Ryan and Bob Helton are suggesting they are harassing the congressmen. We also have people like Eric Borneman suggesting the dive operators are right on this one. Given these circumstances I'd have to say it doesn't look very good for the collectors. It not to hard to believe the position Wayne and Eric have taken, but Bob Helton's position sort of boggles the mind. Good luck rgbmatt.
Mitch

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Mitch,

Got a link to EB's comments?

Thanks

RR

 

[dizzy]

Thales,
I drew that assumption from this article. http://www.dfwmas.org/NewsLetter/dfwmas ... 008_01.pdf

That whole dfwmas editorial is very much pro legislation and since Eric provided the links and contributed to the article, I just naturally assumed he is pro legislation as well. Read the artilce and draw your own conclusion. "According to Eric
Borneman, Over-collection of Potter’s and Yellow Tangs
has been a problem known for over ten years, and the
Line Islands shouldn’t be fished (commercially or ornamentally)
at all."

Page
January 2008
President's Pen (continued)
If you are still skeptical about whether or not this bill is worthwhile, please take the time to visit
the links below. Eric Borneman provided these for me, and now I share them with you.
Links:
http://www.hawaii.edu/ssri/hcri/researc ... ex.shtml#1
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/2/media
PDF file)
http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/dar/pubs/ar_hrs188F5.pdf (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
Acrobat PDF file)
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/tissot/lab.htm
References:
management strategies. Marine Conservation Society.
Matt Little
President, DFWMAS
• • • • • •

 

[spawner]

This is always going to the be problem when you have a fishery this is essentially open. The fisherman have nothing to stand on unless they have a well organized management group that determines the management rules based on science. Otherwise it goes political, no matter what the truth is and the loudest voice(s) get to makes the rules. I'd suggest that you adopt some type of fishery management system instead of the open system as it is now. It's bad PR at the very least the way it stands.

 

[Race]

If you want to see how you can help, go to Drsfostersmith.com and watch Kevin Kohen promote the industry on NBC. He was featured live on NBC's, "In the Loop", yesterday, Feb 26, 2008. This type of promotion for the hobby should have been a task for AMDA's promotional arm---- but instead they chose to fight the internet on behalf of the retailers---and lost !


Thanks, Race

 

[AquaErik]

http://video.intheloop.ivillage.com/pla ... oid=222740

Here is the link to the segment Race mentioned.

Erik
Aqua Marines

 

[naesco]

It was a pleasure to view the video and to see that aquaculture was promoted by Mr. Cohen.
Unlike the famous Nemo promotion by Tetra, they did not stick in a Nemo is a tiny tank.

If aqua culture, sustainable collection and an absolute bar to cyanide collection was promoted, industry would have a fighting chance at surviving.
Cheers