Invasive (Exotic) Species

[PeterIMA]

I am posting links to information concerning invasive marine fish introduced to the Atlantic. The USGS has come out with a new book that is downloadable off the web (see link below) that discusses occurrences of both freshwater and marine fishes. The number of marine aquarium fishes recorded off of Florida (and mapped) is disturbing. It is not just pythons and lionfish that are of concern. The pet trade and hobbyists in particular need to become more proactive to prevent the introduction of freshwater and marine aquarium fish species into areas outside their natural geographic ranges.

Peter Rubec

The USGS, NOAA, and REEF) have published a Field Guide to the Nonindigenous Marine Fishes of Florida. This field guide was funded by the NOAA Aquatic Invasive Species Program and constitutes a "watch list" of potential new invaders. To view this field guide please visit http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/Marine_Fish_ID/index.html .

To learn more about invasive lionfish please visit:

NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science lionfish webpage
http://coastalscience.noaa.gov/education/lionfish.html

NOAA National Ocean Service lionfish educational website
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/stories/lionfish

USGS Nonindigenous Species Database lionfish factsheet
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactShee ... ciesID=963

Reef Environmental Education Foundation lionfish program
http://www.reef.org/programs/exotic/lionfish

 

[jhemdal1]

Peter,

Thanks for the link - I hadn't seen that document yet. I went through it and saw that many of their reports came from the 2004 paper by Semmens et-al. That paper had struck a chord with me - so many of their reports were fishes found right at the Broward / Palm Beach county line. This seems to focus right around the Boca Raton inlet. In my Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques book, I presented the hypothesis that a marine importer in the area might have released these fish in an effort to either create harvestable populations, or at the minimum, to increase interest in local dive sites. Here is an excerpt:

"Table 25 lists the species of exotic marine fishes that have been recorded from U. S. coastal waters to date (adapted in part from Semmens et-al 2004). Without exception, it seems that these fish found their way into this area at the hand of aquarists. Well-meaning but misinformed hobbyists just looking for a home for their over-grown or unwanted fish probably released those species listed in bold. The presence of the other species is a bit of an enigma. It is not very difficult to find a home for your unwanted royal gramma, purple tang or adult emperor angelfish. Why are there a disproportionate number of expensive, highly sought-after Red Sea fish being found in the Atlantic? There is one likely explanation; somebody was releasing these fish with the intent of producing local populations that could then be exploited by the pet trade. Rumors have persisted for many years of fish collectors releasing royal grammas into Florida waters in an attempt to establish a breeding population of these fish that are not native to the area. It is likely that some fish dealer had an assortment of Red Sea fish and then released them in the Atlantic Ocean north of Fort Lauderdale in the hopes of being able to come back later and collect their offspring. This activity gives a tremendous “black eye” to the aquarium hobby, and it is illegal and must stop. Not all fish dealers are part of the problem. One collector in the Florida Keys actually helped round up a stray Pacific batfish that had been living on an offshore reef."

There was an importer that specialized in Red Sea Fishes that had a warehouse in the area, but i just can't recall their name, and they are no longer in business.....


Jay Hemdal

 

[PeterIMA]

Jay, It is misleading to state that most of the marine fish occurrences were Red Sea species. There were other Pacific species described in the book, that most probably originated from either the Philippines or Indonesia. If it was shown that an importer/wholesaler was involved it makes the situation worse. Either way (hobbyists or wholesaler origin) introductions of non-indigenous species of freshwater and marine fishes into Florida waters needs to be stopped by the trade, or government agencies may take more punitive actions. The trade should distribute fliers to all hobbyists advising them that releasing their pets to the wild is illegal and is contrary to the interests of the aquarium hobby and aquarium trade.

Peter Rubec

 

[spawner]

Jay,

There was an importer that use to operate for years in Fort Lauderdale, now out of business, he use to dump his sick or unsaleable fish in the pompano beach inlet. This had nothing to do with trying to establish population, only mere stupidity of the operator.

I think that is why you see so many resident out towners in that inlet, and they make their way north a bit as well.

Peter, all marine except the lionfish thus far are exotic and not invasive. Very different terms.

 

[jhemdal1]

Peter,

Why would it be misleading to say that? Did you even read the excerpt? I didn't say "most" were Red Sea fish, I said "disproportionate". Of the fish I discussed from the Semmens report, (not counting the cichlids, etc.) that were found around that section of Florida, 8 were endemic Red Sea / Western Indian Ocean fish, 9 can be found in both Red Sea and Indo-West Pacific. Only 8 of these fish were from the Indo-Pacific only. This is HUGELY skewed towards Red Sea fish if you were to look at their relative prevalence in the pet trade, where Red Sea fish make up a small proportion of the fish traded.
I simply do not understand why people can't see this - that somebody was preferentially dumping high ticket Red Sea fish into the Atlantic off that part of Florida. Look around at the other reports - big batfish, scats, bamboo sharks, those are all found in other areas of Florida, and those are the species most likely to be simply dumped by home aquarists that can't care for them. The is no reason to dump emperor angels that you don't want, not when a pet store will pay you $50 to $100 for them. Same thing goes for those other Red Sea endemics that were listed Yet - the "experts" keep maintaining that these fish "must have been set free by home aquarists".

Spawner - the importer that I'm trying to think of was located in Palm Beach.....I remember getting their stock lists back around 1999, the sales person was a women IIRC, I don't think I ever ordered from them.


Jay

 

[PeterIMA]

Jay, We are all entitled to our opinion. The book also deals with exotic freshwater fish occurrences (mostly in Florida). I would agree that there was a disproportionate number of marine species taken near Palm Beach. There is a published paper listing about 17 exotic marine aquarium fish species found there (many of these are from the Red Sea but not all of them). Your posting indicates that 9 out of 17 were of Red Sea origin (about 50%). I have it on my hard drive somewhere. I believe that the paper ascribed the occurrences off of Palm Beach to hobbyist releases. But you may be right that a wholesaler was involved.

Peter

 

[PeterIMA]

The paper by Semmens et al. (2004) that was published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series can be downloaded as a PDF file at the following URL:

http://www.reef.org/reef_files/meps_exotic.pdf

We did discuss it several years ago on Reefs.org. I don't think that the link above refers to the RDO web site.

Peter

 

[Anonymous]

Peter,

Why would it be misleading to say that? Did you even read the excerpt? I didn't say "most" were Red Sea fish, I said "disproportionate". Of the fish I discussed from the Semmens report, (not counting the cichlids, etc.) that were found around that section of Florida, 8 were endemic Red Sea / Western Indian Ocean fish, 9 can be found in both Red Sea and Indo-West Pacific. Only 8 of these fish were from the Indo-Pacific only. This is HUGELY skewed towards Red Sea fish if you were to look at their relative prevalence in the pet trade, where Red Sea fish make up a small proportion of the fish traded.
I simply do not understand why people can't see this - that somebody was preferentially dumping high ticket Red Sea fish into the Atlantic off that part of Florida. Look around at the other reports - big batfish, scats, bamboo sharks, those are all found in other areas of Florida, and those are the species most likely to be simply dumped by home aquarists that can't care for them. The is no reason to dump emperor angels that you don't want, not when a pet store will pay you $50 to $100 for them. Same thing goes for those other Red Sea endemics that were listed Yet - the "experts" keep maintaining that these fish "must have been set free by home aquarists".

Spawner - the importer that I'm trying to think of was located in Palm Beach.....I remember getting their stock lists back around 1999, the sales person was a women IIRC, I don't think I ever ordered from them.


Jay

I can see it, and I think you present a convincing argument.

 

[Anonymous]

Jay, We are all entitled to our opinion. The book also deals with exotic freshwater fish occurrences (mostly in Florida). I would agree that there was a disproportionate number of marine species taken near Palm Beach. There is a published paper listing about 17 exotic marine aquarium fish species found there (many of these are from the Red Sea but not all of them). Your posting indicates that 9 out of 17 were of Red Sea origin (about 50%). I have it on my hard drive somewhere. I believe that the paper ascribed the occurrences off of Palm Beach to hobbyist releases. But you may be right that a wholesaler was involved.

Peter

Oh please... just how would they know where a fish came from UNLESS some one was caught red handed? With absolutely no evidence where the fish came from (aquarium, wholesaler, etc) it's merely an assumption on the authors part. Jay and Andy both paint a much brighter picture then that paper suggests (hobbyist).

 

[Anonymous]

I was out fishing on my parents lake the other day and an Arrowana went swimming by! 8O I could supply an aquarium shop with fish from the lake and local canals here in Miami.

I was out yesterday on a reef and could have sworn I saw some purple tangs swimming around.

 

[PeterIMA]

Snailman, Was the lake where you saw the Arowana located in North Caroline or Florida? Ditto, what coral reef area?

Peter

 

[Anonymous]

Miami, Fl.

The reef was a patch reef in about 20 feet of water off elliot key.

 

[PeterIMA]

So, both the freshwater arowana and the marine fish were seen near MIami. Do you have any idea what species of Arowana (South American or Asian) you saw?

Peter

 

[spawner]

People often mistake the Atlantic Blue and Rea Sea Purple Tangs.

 

[jhemdal1]

snailman,

Like spawner said, those were probably Atlantic blue tang adults - they can look purple in the right light. These exotics have all been singletons or pairs, one here, two there. Also, the true purple tangs were seen further north, and since the gulfstream flows so fast, there is very little downstream movement. That doesn't preclude a subsequent release of fish at Elliot Key, but with purple tangs costing $100+, if you saw more than a couple, you most certainly saw blue tangs.
With Asian arowanas illegal to import into the US (CITES 1) you saw a South American one. Besides, even in countries where they are legal (Canada, SE Asia) they cost thousands of dollars, so nobody is going to dump them in a canal(grin). I have a confiscated red morph in my collection that is estimated to be worth $10,000 US.
I knew this guy, up around Tampa Bay, who would travel the countryside capturing feral wildlife and re-selling it to people (mostly parrots, some lizards and monkeys). With the Burmese pythons breeding in the Everglades, South Florida is a real mess. When I lived in Chicago, there was a colony of monk parrots living in Hyde Park. People think "tropical" when they think parrots, but South America has temperate zones in Argentina, etc., and these parrots adapted just fine to the "Windy City". The sad thing was is that the Mayor (who lived across the street from them) was urged to "protect" them by animal rights activists. This is the underlying problem with most of these releases - people do this with the mistaken belief that they are benefiting the individual animal. In the grand scheme of things, the individual animal means nothing - we need to preserve ecosystems.


Jay

 

[PeterIMA]

Jay, It does look odd that so many higher priced species (like Emperor anglefish) were observed off of Palm Beach. The Semmens paper noted that 6 adult Emperor angelfish were observed by divers. However, this is probably not due to a wholesaler trying to establish breeding populations of nonindeigienous species. Steve Robinson tells me that they probably were unsaleable fish, because of some defect (like pop eyes due to being decompressed too fast when initially captured, or because they developed lateral line disease or hole in head disease). I agree with Spawner's interpretation, which is similar to that of Steve.

Peter

 

[jhemdal1]

Peter,

I have to disagree with Steve. He has likely seen all those unsalable fish released off-shore in the Philippines near fish packing points, and is basing his opinion on that activity. However, those fish are typically released because there is no buyer for them; they could be the wrong species, the wrong size, or might have minor issues like torn fins. US importers do not see those types of problems. Besides, that does NOT answer the question of why only the high value-only fish being seen, Why not schools of green chromis (the most commonly imported fish). With these high value fish, unless the fish is moribund, the wholesalers are going to try and recoup their investment and try and save the fish. It is much easier to dose a fish with antibiotics than to capture it up, drive to your boat, take it out to the reef, dive down and release the fish. Besides, moribund fish DO NOT survive in the wild - they become lunch.
Just an FYI - the scenario of fish with popeye being decompressed to quickly - that isn't what happens. If a fish is brought to the surface from very deep water, its gas bladder may expand to the point where its eyes are pushed outwards, but then the fish is already dead. Improper decompression from the depths that aquarium fish come from does NOT cause popeye. That is caused by supersaturation, mechanical injury, and in a few cases, bacterial infection. HLLE is not seen at the wholesale level - it is a chronic long term issue, so would only be seen in hobbyist's tanks and public aquariums. While I can see that these disfigured fish might be released by home aquarists, most of these lesions, once they reach a certain point, cause permenant scarring - and that has not been noticed in these fish seen out on the reefs. The picture of the bamboo shark in the document shows that it has goiter, another chronic condition. that fish was likely released by a home aquarists - however, it is not a a high value fish, and it was found north of the area of Florida where the questionable activity took place, so is not in the sub-set of the fish that I am discussing.
I still say that it was multiple releases of multiple high value fish, in one localized area - not seen in other areas - so something unique was happening here. Hobbyist releases are not going to be focused like that. Only an importer/wholesaler is going to have access to that many, expensive fish. Why intentionally release them? I think I've adequately demonstrated that they weren't released because they were sick - so what does that leave? Royal Grammas were intentionally released in this same area so that local collectors could exploit them - I was told this by a long time collector. Why did they do this? They needed Grammas to sell to pet stores. They could either buy them from Haiti and re-sell them, or make an illegal collecting run down to Cay Sal Bank. Both of these options are costly, so they took groups of grammas and put them out on the Florida reefs in the hopes they would breed. Why is it so difficult to believe that the same thing didn't happened with these Red Sea Fish?


Jay

 

[PeterIMA]

Jay, You make a good set of arguements.However, I don't believe that the photos of the fish in the book represent the fish seen underwater by REEFS (the NGO run by Laddy Adkins). So, I do not believe you can infer anything about their disease status from the photos in the book. I tend to believe Steve Robinson. He asserted that fish brought up too quickly develop pop eye and that many of these fish survive. Based on his extensive experience as a collector, I believe him more than I do you.

As far as the main premise, that the fishes observed off of Palm Beach and Brevard Counties were introduced by a wholesaler, I am more willing to believe that you are right (and that I may be wrong). It sounds to me like it should be possible to identify the wholesaler involved. I will bring this to the attention of the proper authorities within the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for investigation and possible legal action.

Peter Rubec, Ph.D.

 

[Anonymous]

Jay, You make a good set of arguements.However, I don't believe that the photos of the fish in the book represent the fish seen underwater by REEFS (the NGO run by Laddy Adkins). So, I do not believe you can infer anything about their disease status from the photos in the book. I tend to believe Steve Robinson. He asserted that fish brought up too quickly develop pop eye and that many of these fish survive. Based on his extensive experience as a collector, I believe him more than I do you.

As far as the main premise, that the fishes observed off of Palm Beach and Brevard Counties were introduced by a wholesaler, I am more willing to believe that you are right (and that I may be wrong). It sounds to me like it should be possible to identify the wholesaler involved. I will bring this to the attention of the proper authorities within the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for investigation and possible legal action.

Peter Rubec, Ph.D.

Maybe you missed the part where they said they don't think they are in business anymore? If it's who I think they are talking about, business is no longer around.

 

[jhemdal1]

Gresham - can you PM me with the name? I just want to see if we are thinking of the same place...its been driving me crazy trying to think of their name.....

Jay