Impacts of Aquarium Trade in Hawaii

I used to work in an aquatic shop. I used to go to my wholesaler every week and be stunned by the number of species on offer. I was always told that they were all net caught, no cyanide or dynamite was used, avoiding loss was top of the agenda. It's bull shit. I've witnessed boxes of livestock being opened and everything is dead, fish, inverts everything. The trade is awful, no one cares about the long term state of the oceans, it's all about profit from the top down. The trade is sick, end of.

Targeting prereproductive juveniles is a well known problem with the industry. For $50 a year, collectors take as much as they want from Hawaii's reefs with no limits on the species or numbers of fish taken. Targeted species populations have plummeted in many areas, in fact 2 butterflyfish species have crashed in areas of Kona where most of the collecting occurs. Collectors claim to have the best intentions for the resource, but continue to strip mine. The State allows and even supports it.

While you raise some valid points (such as the value of aquaculture) the bias in this video undeniable.
Several factual inaccuracies are present and you have blatently failed to sight any of your resources. In particular, the reference to the collection of juvenile fish demonstrates a frank ignorance to the population dynamics of reef fish. The collection of juvenile specimins minimises population impact as it has relatively little impact on the reproductive potential of the population.

This video speaks to an ultra pessimistic version of the truth. It is a distortion of reality which uses mixed data sets, supposition and poorly thought out conclusions to pursue by a preconceived agenda of eliminating the wild marine aquarium industry. It will be a monumental effort to develop aquaculture techinques without the participation of dedicated hobbyists. Mariculture of corals made leaps and bounds based on hobbyist contribution to the science.

FYI - 60% of the fish taken from the wild do not die... it is actually 100%!

Everyone dies.

The rub is that we do not all die in prematurely and in captivity!

Cool concept but not true. I am a collector and disagree with your tactics. If more than 3 % died after collection we would be out of business. I just want everyone to know that this is propaganda for the "save the reef year" in hawaii and thats all. The true reason you are seeing less fish is because of more people and more pollution. This video represents me poorly. The public aquariums would not hire me or twenty other divers that applied for work.

Mahalos for the great content! This video is now playing on HawaiiPictures(.)com. Check the chat room on the bottom of the home page and feel free to embed the room on your blog or site.

Wish everyone who has an aquarium sees this before they buy another fish. Any other business that had a failure rate of 60% for their product would be out of business. Instead the collection business creates dying ghost reefs.
Do what you can to promote healthy reefs and leave the tropical fish in the oceans