two missing in Tonga fish trade

[clarionreef]

Chris,
THEY START AT 120 feet in Tonga but are much more abundant at 175.
Intentionally manipulating, exploiting and using divers who don't understand the physics of deep diving not to mention the medical effects is criminal.

After Rudy Balmoris of Bolinao , Pangasinan, Philippines died catching ventalis at 175'....Jayhawk lost its divers.
Then Jayhawks manager went over to Dateline.
There at Dateline, he pressured divers to continue getting deepwater ventralis so much that the best two resigned....and left the country.
Sione, a boatman for Dateline was lost 4 weeks ago when the two boats disappeared.
Coral Kingdom lost their boatman Tony at the same time.
Coral Kingdom is the one that denys return plane tickets and salaries to coerce and force divers to stay. After basically kidnapping the manager for two years and a diver for one...they both finally broke free, forfieted everything and returned home.
Denying work permits, tickets and pay kept the divers illegal and off balance. Unlike America, employers in Tonga are not punished for this...only workers. This is why the divers had no standing or recourse when cheated and not treated well.

Three deaths in 10 months and all the rest is a lot of drama for a little place. It could be that only the worst kind of people could get permits in Tonga where access to royal favor has always been the talent required over normal people and business skills.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

IMT = Coral Kingdom?

 

[clarionreef]

Yes,
Coral Kingdom is Kolis Moas now dying Island Marine Tropicals.
MeMe is here w/ me now in PNG and so happy to be free again.
His last shipments were near perfect. He saved them, managed a hundred shipments and his reward was to lose everything in the bitter end.
He went home to see familiy for 3 weeks and then joined us here.
Steve

 

[naesco]

Steve what can industry here do to put this creep out of business.?

Do yo know who he sells to and if so I will contact them to give this guy the bird.

Let us know, because although we have our differences, I think it is safe to say no one wants this guy in the industry.
Thanks Wayne

 

[Anonymous]

Chris,
THEY START AT 120 feet in Tonga but are much more abundant at 175.
Intentionally manipulating, exploiting and using divers who don't understand the physics of deep diving not to mention the medical effects is criminal.

After Rudy Balmoris of Bolinao , Pangasinan, Philippines died catching ventalis at 175'....Jayhawk lost its divers.
Then Jayhawks manager went over to Dateline.
There at Dateline, he pressured divers to continue getting deepwater ventralis so much that the best two resigned....and left the country.
Sione, a boatman for Dateline was lost 4 weeks ago when the two boats disappeared.
Coral Kingdom lost their boatman Tony at the same time.
Coral Kingdom is the one that denys return plane tickets and salaries to coerce and force divers to stay. After basically kidnapping the manager for two years and a diver for one...they both finally broke free, forfieted everything and returned home.
Denying work permits, tickets and pay kept the divers illegal and off balance. Unlike America, employers in Tonga are not punished for this...only workers. This is why the divers had no standing or recourse when cheated and not treated well.

Three deaths in 10 months and all the rest is a lot of drama for a little place. It could be that only the worst kind of people could get permits in Tonga where access to royal favor has always been the talent required over normal people and business skills.
Steve

That is insane!! I have been down to 130' several times. I did not feel comfortable and had many prior dives and 2 semesters of college dive classes. I am sure most of these guys are just given a bunch of crappy equipment and told to find fish. I doubt they are using special gas mixtures for deep diving either.

 

[Anonymous]

The PI divers I was with in Tonga flat out refused to use any other equipment than what they wanted to use. They would not use a BCD and the only fins they would use were the ones they made from 5 gallon buckets. At the time, Steve assured me me they were trained divers, but I was appalled when they would go from 80 feet to the surface multiple times during a dive to get a new tank to go back down and keep collecting (I even got made fun of because I wouldn't do the same). Through a mistake from scuba.com, the gear that was ordered came with no depth gauges and when I offered to get on the phone and fix the issue, I was told it didn't matter, and none of the divers from PI seemed to care. I was also told that they wouldn't use computers, and if they were forced to, they would simply tie them onto a line at an 'appropriate' depth.
So, to be fair, while it seems there may be many things that the owners have done that are nefarious and horrible, refusing access to decent gear is not necessarily one of them.

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Anonymous]

Wow thats pretty scary.

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Yes,
Coral Kingdom is Kolis Moas now dying Island Marine Tropicals.
MeMe is here w/ me now in PNG and so happy to be free again.
His last shipments were near perfect. He saved them, managed a hundred shipments and his reward was to lose everything in the bitter end.
He went home to see familiy for 3 weeks and then joined us here.
Steve

Hi Steve,

When Meme gets back please say hello. He is the best Filipino fish collector and a very honest man, by now, he must know many more things about the trade of marine ornamental fish.


Jaime

 

[rgbmatt]

The PI divers I was with in Tonga flat out refused to use any other equipment than what they wanted to use. They would not use a BCD and the only fins they would use were the ones they made from 5 gallon buckets.

Being comfortable in the water is a lot more important than using fancy equipment. I don't use a BCD either - they're too bulky and slow for chasing fish, and can be an entanglement hazard if you're working with nets.

As for dive computers, you'd be surprised at how much of a safety margin they really have. These divers grew up without that kind of technology, and have learned through experience what they can get away with. They (usually) manage to avoid getting bent even though they routinely dive far beyond what our decompression models predict. Not that I'd recommend this approach to anybody - it's still pretty darn risky.

That said, doing multiple dives to 170' is bound to get anybody messed up.

 

[Anonymous]

The PI divers I was with in Tonga flat out refused to use any other equipment than what they wanted to use. They would not use a BCD and the only fins they would use were the ones they made from 5 gallon buckets.

Being comfortable in the water is a lot more important than using fancy equipment. I don't use a BCD either - they're too bulky and slow for chasing fish, and can be an entanglement hazard if you're working with nets.

As for dive computers, you'd be surprised at how much of a safety margin they really have. These divers grew up without that kind of technology, and have learned through experience what they can get away with. They (usually) manage to avoid getting bent even though they routinely dive far beyond what our decompression models predict. Not that I'd recommend this approach to anybody - it's still pretty darn risky.

That said, doing multiple dives to 170' is bound to get anybody messed up.

My point was more to head off the idea that they are given 'crappy' equipment by the station owners. There is a whole lot to be worried about in this thread without heaping more on it.

Dive wise, I was more tweaked by the radical saw tooth profiles the guys dove than the equipment they chose not to use - to the boat from 80 or 90 feet several times a dive with no deco stops ever.

I think I have a pretty good idea how much of a safety margin computers have. I chose to use one of the most conservative, but that is my choice and other choose differently. If I were collecting for a living, I would do many thing differently than I do now

Steve would disagree with you about them not getting bent - I believe the story goes most of the men in a village (40 divers? 70 divers?) in PI died due to poor practices. The story was one of his rally cries a year or two ago and maybe he will refresh us with the details.

That said, I completely agree about multiple dives to 170. Crazy town.

 

[Vili_Shark]

Ocean 2000 is in Fiji, that is unless someone in Tonga has taken on that name also. Tai Hancock and Nemani owned Ocean 2000 in Fiji.

Now I am not so sure that all importers would know who is involved with these practices as I thought of only two that I knew were treating Philippino divers this way. That is why I would invite Steve to make it public if he thinks that it would help. I would guess that the importers involved with the ones that I know of would rather turn a blind eye to how the fish were produced in order to receive the high demand fish that they want. The last time I had Ventralis anthias on my list was 3 years ago when Chip Boyle was collecting them. It would be interesting to see how many Ventralis anthias from Tonga show up on wholesale lists presently.

Dave

Hello Dave,
Cant remember if it was February or March-April, but Hong Kong had about 80-100 ventralis coming in within few weeks from Vanuatu, Tonga and I think another place.

 

[Jacky W]

Ocean 2000 is in Fiji, that is unless someone in Tonga has taken on that name also. Tai Hancock and Nemani owned Ocean 2000 in Fiji.

Now I am not so sure that all importers would know who is involved with these practices as I thought of only two that I knew were treating Philippino divers this way. That is why I would invite Steve to make it public if he thinks that it would help. I would guess that the importers involved with the ones that I know of would rather turn a blind eye to how the fish were produced in order to receive the high demand fish that they want. The last time I had Ventralis anthias on my list was 3 years ago when Chip Boyle was collecting them. It would be interesting to see how many Ventralis anthias from Tonga show up on wholesale lists presently.

Dave

Hello Dave,
Cant remember if it was February or March-April, but Hong Kong had about 80-100 ventralis coming in within few weeks from Vanuatu, Tonga and I think another place.

Should be Cook Island, but in Hong Kong, I hadn't seen any showing up after Februrary.

 

[clarionreef]

Guys,
No one has even been trained to dive to 180 and more to collect ventralis.

Out of desperation, Filipinos in the Philippines go beyond the limits to get the better fish that no longer exist in the shallower areas. They have driven themselves to dive deep and unsafe in the Philippines.
The wipe-out of the shallows by over collecting with destructive methods has taken its toll.
Now, when you bring these guys to Tonga or Vanuatu...and offer more pay they are happy for the better job and will do all to please.
For a long time, the dives were to the 80-100 zone and collecting Scotts wrasse , pictilis anthias and genicanthus .
This zone is still very dangerous as the hours pass and the lack of decompression intervals above in the boat seldom enough or non existant as Rich pointed out.
Still, the threat to their lives was always there.
Now, increase the depth to the ventralis zone...and accidents become predictable and unavoidable.
I had it explained to me by Meme that many divers thought that beyond the 100 foot one its all the same so the extra feet did not matter!
I told Meme to pass on the word that I said....the danger becomes multiplied, in fact exponential as you pass the 100 foot zone.
Now that was really bad news as they had to weigh it against the pressure and the orders to dive deep and catch ventralis.
Isolated in a foreign country and totally dependant upon your employer for all....do you say no?
Those of us with recourse, with wherewithall and with credit cards and ATM cards...not to mention Google...ie diving safety...may decide to resign then and there.
I can tell you now, Rudy Balmoris was focused on getting money for his family and hoped for the best...

Very educated Americans with the intelligence to discuss decompression at length are at the surface end of ventralis collecting. These were not just oblivious, Marcos era Exporters in Manila doing this.
These guys are supposed to take care of their divers, advise and warn them and not exploit their lack of understanding of deep diving physics just to please Kamihata in Japan..
Steve

 

[clarionreef]

this just in;
The "Free Filipino Tongan alumni" here says that on many ventralis dives they didn't really know their depth as their depth guages only went to 180"!
This is why the 180 depth is mentioned so often but in fact the dives were off the scale quite often....even past 200'.

Commercial divers of great underwater time do in fact seem to build a resistance to the normal decompression effects. This may give them a sense of exemption to the textbook rules of physics.
Then, one day....it happens anyway.
Futhermore, they do still pay the piper in creeping bone neucrosis and arthiritis as they get older.

Jaime, MeMe says hi!
Coral Kingdom, Dateline and Jayhawk....MeMe and Eddie say @&#$*#@
Steve

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Hi all,


What about banning the trade of ventralis? If there is not demand, collectors won't have to risk their lives to "satisfy" hobbyists and retailers who care very little about what could happen to divers during collection.

Jaime

 

[clarionreef]

Jaime,
I have always seen small clown triggers in the same way.
100 divers have died catching those stupid little triggers in Polilio Island off Quezon and no exporter ever sent flowers or a stipend for the widow.
I wish people would refrain from buying baby clown triggers when they are in season, but they are cheaper then and everyone buys them anyway.

Ventralis are coveted most in Japan and as they kill and support killing whales so much....ventralis collecting is not likely to cause much of a stir.

Has informed consumer choice in the aquarium trade ever reached double digits on anything?
Has anything ever been banned except CITES items?

Many countries now ban compressor diving or scuba diving to collect fish with. Tonga banned compressors...but not scuba as if the diving physics were somehow different.
Who knows? They may now ban scuba and send Tonga back to snorkling.

60,000 people die in car accidents every year in the USA....but only small numbers ignite the passion to ban things. I wonder why that is?

I wish buyers would just avoid the dealers who push divers to the danger zone and deny them free choice without consequences.

Tonga is something of an anomalie as some of the exporters there evolved into something malignant.
Dave is right though. NOT ALL HAVE HAD A PART IN THIS and we should not paint all with the same brush.
Still, 3 out of 5 ain't good.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Hi all,


What about banning the trade of ventralis? If there is not demand, collectors won't have to risk their lives to "satisfy" hobbyists and retailers who care very little about what could happen to divers during collection.

Jaime

The problem with banning is that there really is no way to do it, which seems to be the same issue with getting anything at all done in the hobby/industry.

Publicity may be a good way to start (notice the may). All we have now is in reality, hearsay. A good, documented article/video (anyone want to back a documentary?) would go a long way in making all of this a reality for people. The conservation side that says yellow tangs are juiced uses the media to make its case, and gets a lot of traction. I fear, without media, the whole thing is seen/dismissed as a few disgruntled people complaining on the internet.

 

[clarionreef]

Disgruntled people?
And that would be an inaccurate assessment as well.
Media can be used either way as you pointed out in the yellow tang hysteria so its not credible on its own. Effective perhaps...credible no.

As far as "the whole thing seen as dimissed as a few disgruntled people complaining on the internet..."
Thats the first time I've heard that one. Importers wanting cheap coral frieght are the only ones privately complaining and thats only among each other!

Waiting for someone to pay someone to go poke around and write a story determines wether or not Rudy died needlessly?
The victims are mainly dead or have escaped from Tonga so going to Tonga will only be for part of the story anyway.
And all the exporters will lie anyway.

Rudys family are in the Philippines.
Eddie and MeMe are in PNG.
Jose and Renato are in the Philippines.
The Philippine Embassy is in Wellington, New Zealand and they already called one of the perps and asked if he was a bad person. They said no".
Kole accidently ran into MeMe at the airport on his way out of Tonga and quietly apologized for hurting him so badly and ruining his past year.

The lack of constituents of the victims in Tonga kept the story down and the need to keep cheap coral frieght flowing from Tonga keeps it down here.

Importers of Tonga fishes and corals can chime in here anytime and I'd love to hear from the exporters.
This is a free flowing forum and for issues sharpened with regards to the aquarium trade, far ahead of and far more credible then the popular yellow [tang] press.

Steve

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Tonga is something of an anomalie as some of the exporters there evolved into something malignant.
Dave is right though. NOT ALL HAVE HAD A PART IN THIS and we should not paint all with the same brush.
Still, 3 out of 5 ain't good.

What do you think were the combined forces that caused Tonga exporters to "evolve into something malignant"? And why is Tonga an anomalie?