Missing the point of MAC issues? Attn: John Brandt and Mary
- Thread starter Adam1
- Start date
I think you misunderstood my point{Your not alone} What is the price that the exporter charges for the fish itself.......beween Tonga 2.50.....Fiji 4.50......Bali 2.50......PI 1.00........Solomon 3.00.....? There is onlly about 2 dollars in cost betwwen any of these islands.........Yet The importers choose to order from PI because the frieght is almost half........and the packing is almost twice as many fish per box..............This notion that PI fish are a lot cheaper to collect is false..................The price at retail beween a 60 dollar fiji coral beauty and a 39 dollar PI beauty is actually only 2 bucks with respect to the fish collectors fee........
There is no way that any collectors fish will test !100 Percent clean.......fish that escaped and survived cyanide fishing from another collector will be collected unknowingly......fish that feed on tainted with cyanide Algae will test positive...........The best one might be able to hope for would be five percent positive...........?jamesw":37o4c4kc said:
James there is no way a batch of fish can test dirty as such. Any fish that are proven dirty will be dead and shipping such will be pointless. Fish that are not tested cannot be assumed to be guilty via guilt by association. Innocent until proven guilty extends to fish as well as people.jamesw":34q9dh2l said:
Adam":19v6k335 said:
Adam,
I think your posting is far too pessimistic to account for the reality of net-caught fish coming from the Philippines, be they MAC Certified or otherwise. I spent 3 days in the water with MAC Certified Collectors who do not use cyanide to collect fish. The future you propose is happening right now.
James, how in the world can you prove ALL of the fish in a batch were caught with cyanide because one tested positive?? A US law can't be enforced because of the "possibility" that the rest of the fish "may" be cyanide caught. Plus exporters combine batches of fish from many different collectors. The US government can not enforce MAC certification standards, which supposedly track the batches from each individual collector. So where does this leave the exporter? "Yeah, one fish from collector A tested positive, but we got the rest from collectors B-Z.". How is the government going to prove the others were cyanide caught? Short answer- they can't and your argument doesn't hold seawater.
Let me say it again- the only good CDT is a stateside CDT.John, I would be interested to know what species they were collecting before at this site with cyanide. Were they even using cyanide prior to MAC certification?
So Peter , have you ever actually heard of a test conducted on the residual effects of cyanide....{coral ,Rock or plants}....? Have you ever tested a grouper which has eaten several cyanide fish? Or an Angel fish which has eaten its fill of stunned shrimp ......shrimp stunned with cyanide? If so please point me to such research.........Also, What percentage of MAC fish do you feel would test positive............and how would even a 1% positive for cyanide effect the public perception of certified fish?PeterIMA":2i3dtb2d said:
Kalk, I will give you credit for good ideas (even if they don't have any scientific data to support them). The only experimental work that I have seen to support the fact that cyanide may enter the fish through the stomach rather than the gills is work by David Bellwood published in FAMA in 1981. He used radioactive potassium cyanide and cut up the fish to measure the radioactivity with a scintillation counter. The counts indicated that cyanide was taken up across the stomach, but at levels (scintillation counts) than the gills.
I have had several students contact me seeking funding for research projects. One wanted to measure cyanide levels in corals. The IMA did not have the funds to support this work.
More research is needed to answer the questions you are raising about cyanide ingestion though the food chain (prey algae or shrimp). I do know that the fishermen use cyanide poisoned bait to catch fish. Some fishermen and their families have become extremely sick (some people are rumoured to have died) from eating fish with cyanide poisoned baits (like shrimp). So, some of your ideas may have some basis but need proper scientific research to confirm or deny your assertions.
As far as where CDT labs should be located, I believe they are needed both in the exporting countries and in the importing countries (like the USA).
Peter Rubec
I have had several students contact me seeking funding for research projects. One wanted to measure cyanide levels in corals. The IMA did not have the funds to support this work.
More research is needed to answer the questions you are raising about cyanide ingestion though the food chain (prey algae or shrimp). I do know that the fishermen use cyanide poisoned bait to catch fish. Some fishermen and their families have become extremely sick (some people are rumoured to have died) from eating fish with cyanide poisoned baits (like shrimp). So, some of your ideas may have some basis but need proper scientific research to confirm or deny your assertions.
As far as where CDT labs should be located, I believe they are needed both in the exporting countries and in the importing countries (like the USA).
Peter Rubec
MaryHM":9pgrazy9 said:
Mary,
Yes, the area has a history of cyanide use, and unfortunately dynamite use as well. The use of cyanide there ended some time prior to MAC Certification; I do not know exactly when, but that information may be available. We were told that the dynamite fishing ended about 5 years ago. The effects of this remain and are obvious in some places.
I presume that the species that were collected with cyanide are the typical ones: angelfish, tangs and possibly other difficult but desirable species. I will inquire, and in the meantime Steve Robinson may have comments.
The species that are taken now in the MAC Certified Collecting areas are ones that are fairly easily collected with nets while holding a breath. This obviously excludes a number of more difficult to capture, and deeper-dwelling species. There is a single hookah rig at Batasan Island. Monica Piquero (MAC Visayas Community Coordinator) offered to take us to the hookah banca in operation, but I declined the offer. I now regret it. Never once did any MAC representatives keep us from exploring and observing any of the MAC operations. They encouraged any and all questions that we may have had for anyone involved. It was about as "open book" as it could have been.
As I have stated previously, MAC encouraged me (and Mike King) to stay as long as we liked. The collectors appreciated the dialogue that was going on between us (by way of translator Monica). It was obvious we were both learning from this exchange. I got the distinct impression that the collectors would have liked us to extend our stay. I would certainly have done this if I did not have to attend a United States Coral Reef Task Force meeting in Washington DC.
Most of my fish are from non MAC countries and Islands......Tonga,Vanatu, Fiji, Cook, Palau.and Bali....so If I only purchased MAC fish I would be limited to PI fish only.........We are mostly a coral store.....I am certain none of my corals are cyanide caught.....and CITES keep tabs on sustainability in the Limited areas that corals are collected in the world..........{ actually the Austrialian fisheries over sees Tonga and Vanatu}. The way I look at it, people with reef tanks and reef stores in a way help to protect the reefs by not consuming as many fish{reef tanks} and giving the islanders a reason to protect and farm their live coral reefs.{in contrast to fishingWHERE CORAL IS AN OBSTACAL}......most small sps corals harvested for the trade would have not survived in the wild {because most are overgrown by older huge specimens}.......most Mushrooms today are farmed by placing loose live rocK rubble on top of wild colonies and only the loose live rock collected for market { the best shrooms are done this way, to assure continued supply} ........Soft corals are soo abundant that CITES does not even keep track of soft corals only the live rock they are attached to!............Imagine if the Philippines only allowed coral harvest and banned fishing.........?PeterIMA":i2saadga said:
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