ok, i am going o take this time to explain a few things. yes, everytime i look into my aquarium, which hasnt seen a wild coral in a very very long time, i get sad. i have two fish, one of which is my very first, and another i purchased before i felt the way i do. i feel that i have a responsibility towards my animals and i try my best to fulfill that. i refuse to let my tank go based on the my fear that someone else will kill the animals in it. if i even lose a frag or a piece of a coral that has come from many generations of homegrown coral, i get sad. i keep the skeleton as a reminder of what i shouldnt have gotten myself into. but like i said i have a responsibility to my animals.
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How can you in good conscience, pursue this hobby
i dont "pursue" the hobby. i am merely interested in the advances that it makes in the conservation side of it. i try and help some people keep thier animals alive, because no mater what i say or do, no one will listen and still buy gonis and anemones, like i once did.
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You CAN have sustainable harvesting of wild corals. After storms there are broken heads which get buried in rubble. Those corals are doomed and it doesn't hurt to remove them
you're right, if this was the only case in which they collected the coral, but its not, and removing 50 tons of coral a year is alot, even if it pales in comparison to how much is out there.
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Hey loosbrew. If you really believe all of those things you say, I bet your aquarium is not very pretty. No fish, no corals, no live rock. I guess you dont like captive raised corals and fish too, becouse they corals they propagate where all taken from the ocean at one time. If we followed your no takeing rule there would be no reef tanks. Taking is a good thing. When they kill they reefs completly we will have something to put back.
im not saying people shouldnt have reef aquariums, im saying that we shouldnt have to resort to wild collection, now that we have means to create an environment that our animals will thrive in without such methods.
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If we can manage our forests in Montana by thinning dead or over crowded trees and thinning so the forest is much healthier why can't we thin out a coral reef and remove the broken coral heads so new corals and the inhabitant have a better place to grow and prosper.
because there are many more species of coral in the reefs, and to "thin" out corals would involve witch species will thrive and which wouldnt. i dont think we can justify "thining" reefs so they grow better, thats a little bit ludicrous.
cjdevito
i can understand this point of view, maybe not neseccarily agree with it wholeheartedly, but i understand it. i feel that it has a place, just not as a world wide market for a hobby. research and awareness i am all for, but not the exploitation for a hobby.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>If Wild harvesting is outlawed out right what do you think these people are going to do? They want to feed their families TODAY, not tommorrow, not next week, not next month but TODAY!! So they will turn to other means that reap maximum returns in the shortest period of time by cyanide fishing, dyanmite fishing etc. Can you blame them? NO, as they are just trying to feed their families. Which would you choose
1) Food on the table for your family
or
2) Pretty little fish swimming in the ocean <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
what did they do before hand? how did they live before they knew what money was, or had a nice watch or clothes?
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look, i dont claim to know everything, and i never will. i dont claim to know the answers to our problems in both lights. i just merely have a spoken opinion, and if that helps someone else make a desicion wether to purchase wild or captive, then great , but itsnot what im here for. im here because at one point in my life i loved the hobby and supported it with open arms. i went out and tried all of the different methods and had my hands wet every other night. i went out and bought wild corals, becase i didnt know any better. i bought fish, lost a few, and i still have a few. i go to great lengths to make sure that my animal friends are as happy as i can provide, and for the most part, they dont complain. but i know id rather see them in the ocean, where theyshould be, rather than some guy in fiji making a few dollars.
loosbrew
edit*
a link to my reef pics.
http://members.home.net/loosbrew/tankpics
[ June 15, 2001: Message edited by: loosbrew ]