Reefsource.com Update- Lots of new information!

[MaryHM]

Hi all,

I have just updated www.reefsource.com with a lot of new information. Some of the things you need to check out include:

Participate in a new Aquarium Fish Survivability study being conducted by the Marine Conservation Society.

Read about research of Collection Impacts on the Kona Coast of Hawaii

Numerous news articles affecting the reefs/hobby

Australian Coral Fisheries Management

Check out our finished fish room and see what we're up to now!

And much, much more!! Go to www.reefsource.com to see it all!!


Mary

 

[flameangel1]

Mary,,
Just finished reading everything on the site--Very interesting !!
Thank you.

 

[SPC]

Thanks Mary, your holding facility looks great!
I was wondering why the MCS has not posted this survey on the various BB's, who are they trying to reach?
Steve

 

[MaryHM]

I think the problem is that most of these organizations don't have a clue about the hobby boards. Hopefully I can be of assistance to them by "spreading the word".

 

[naesco]

Nice site. Common objectives.
I am sorry you resigned from MAC.

 

[Oldguy]

Great job on your site Mary

 

[dizzy]

Mary,

I was looking over your site. Why are you going to drop the Phillipine net caught fish. Steve Robinson also recently stated that he is no longer going to be handling the Phillipine net caught stuff either as he will be concentrating on his Mexican collecting operations. It sure seems like a shame that the net caught stuff is getting such a luke warm reception from the reformers.

 

[MaryHM]

Just because something is net caught doesn't mean it was handled properly- and handling is 90% of the problem. It makes no sense for me to import drug free fish that I have to drug once they're here to clean them up. There are a couple of species that do well- no disease problems- and I'll carry those. But as far as carrying a big variety it's just not worth it. If carrying net caught Philippines means that I lose money, I'd rather have no Philippines.

 

[dizzy]

Mary,

I'm feeling a little dizzy again. If the reform movement is to have much of a chance, the divers using the nets in the Philippine need people to buy their product. I understand not wanting to deal with fish that don't have the best track record, but if people don't support the guys who are trying to do it right, then there is very little incentive to keep them from going back to the poison.

I agree that poor handling is a huge part of the fish mortality equation. It is not however nearly as damaging as destructive fishing practices. We as an industry have got demonstrate that we will support those individuals, and those companies who are willing to practice sustainable methods. This change is going to be costly to us all, but we have got to realize that this is probably the best shot we have at saving our industry and our hobby.

Simply not buying fish that originate from the Philippines will do little or nothing to effect positive change in that region.

 

[naesco]

I think Dizzy is making a valid point here.
Mary what is it about the handling that is causing problems?

 

[MaryHM]

Posted by dizzy:
I agree that poor handling is a huge part of the fish mortality equation. It is not however nearly as damaging as destructive fishing practices.

If you are talking about impacts on the reef, you are 100% right. If you are talking about impact on the fish itself, you are 90% wrong. Handling has so much to do with whether or not you get a healthy fish- especially out of places like the Philippines and Indonesia where the fish are in the hands of the collectors and middlemen for days-weeks before reaching the exporter. I agree that net caught fish need to be supported. But are you willing to buy all of the diseased net caught fish I get from the Philippines? Are you willing to buy all of the hand caught Tongan and Fiji fish that they infect in my system?? If so, then I'll continue to import them. But don't gripe when they have fin rot and ich and cloudy eyes. Not acceptable you say? I agree. If you don't want to eat the cost on diseased fish, why would I? Until the handling situation is corrected over there, it does no good to have hand caught fish (except for the impact on the reefs). I'd rather deal in hand caught fish from Tonga/Fiji/Solomons where they know how to properly catch AND handle their fish. Maybe if everyone would quit dealing with Philippines/Indo fish for a few months and force them to get their act together, then the problem would have to solve itself. Until then, any fish that I can't sell is not a fish I am willing to buy- even if it is hand caught.

 

[JeremyR]

Mary is definitely right on this one. I've heard from several importers that the netcaught phillipine fish come in riddled with velvet and other diseases, and nuke your whole system if you aren't running heavy copper. Oftentimes fish like that in systems that are under copper will clear up some, and then when shipped to an LFS they regress and nuke that system too unless the LFS is running copper..

So I can completely understand why mary doesn't want to buy those fish. I very rarely medicate my fish systems, and don't like having to do it, so I don't want them either untill they clean up their act.

 

[dizzy]

Jeremy,

The Philippines don't have a patent on protozoan parasites. The fish coming out of the Philippines aren't they only ones that get stressed either. I had orders of fish from Florida waters come in with severe cases of Amyloodininium.

If you don't want to handle Philippine netcaught stuff that's fine, but I don't think you should badmouth them either. There has been a lot of time and effort put into training a few divers to use nets versus cyanide.
I hope people do buy their fish and I hope more of the collectors switch from cyanide to to nets.

 

[JeremyR]

You are missing the point.. the point is the major netcaught phil people are well known for shipping parasite ridden fish. It doesn't matter how much time you spend training divers if you don't put any money into holding systems and proper handling. An example of this is seen in this hobby every day.. you can walk into an LFS, buy the healthies hardiest tank raised clownfish that ever existed.. but if you put it into an unhealhty disease ridden holding system for a couple of days, it's gonna get sick on you. Of course you can get parasite ridden fish in the carib or hawaii or anywhere.. but a smart buyer avoids those people in favor of ones who handle the fish better. *IF* they start net catching fish in the phillipines AND handling them properly, then of course there would be a product everyone would want to buy and I'll be first in line.

 

[dizzy]

Jeremy,

It is very common for healthy fish to come out of the wild with a few parasites. Cleaner wrasses, cleaner shrimp, small angels, and other fish actively remove parasites in the wild. In closed systems the parasites can multiply to overwhelming numbers. The simple truth is you can buy a very healthy fish and still have it introduce parasites to your system. Natural systems with good water quality and lots of coral included seem to help the fishes immunity systems fight them off.

I attended MACNA X when it was held in LA in few years ago. I spent a day with Dieter Brockman from Germany visiting as many of the wholesalers out there as possible. I have never heard anyone admit to intentionally buying cyanide fish so I guess they all must sort of claim to handle netcaught. In short we visited the top five volume wholesalers, and I can honestly say they all appeared to be doing an above average job of husbandry. I saw a few newly arrived fish that looked stressed, but I didn't notice any of the wholesalers who were just letting the parasites run wild.

Here is my point one more time: Fish dying after the capture is sad, and shipping and holding stress needs to be reduced. I believe MAC is addressing this issue. While fish dying due to stress is bad, it is nowhere near as bad as killing the corals and destroying the habitat in the collection process. A healthy reef can sustain a large harvest. A dead reef produces almost nothing. The cyanide collecting has got to end. Net collectors need to be rewarded somehow. If we don't support the net collectors they are likley to go back to using cyanide to collect food fish to eat. End of story.

 

[Louis Z]

Mary I too looked at your site and was happy with the info you have . I just had the question of if you did this in Fiji could you do this elsewhere such as the philipines? I am not saying you have to and I realize that this is expenditure on your part. But let say you had the cash to rehabilitate one collector-exporter combo would you do that in the phillipines or are they difficult to work with. I am thinking if that some have gone to net collection then they would possibly accept better ideas on holding fishes properly before sending. I see it as an education problem. If those that taught net collection could teach proper holding practices then maybe wholesalers like you wouldnt have to expend cash to teach and upgrade their systems? Just simple thoughts - i havent done alot of research on the subject nor have i kept up with MAC. Thanks Louis Z.

 

[Anemone]

The cyanide collecting has got to end. Net collectors need to be rewarded somehow. If we don't support the net collectors they are likley to go back to using cyanide to collect food fish to eat. End of story.

Dizzy,

The problem is that due to the way net-caught fish are handled (in the Philippines), it's a money-losing proposition for ethical wholesalers (ones that don't just quickly ship to LFSs and let the LFSs take the loss on stock that dies) and the end-user LFSs. I don't see any point in either of the above businesses going under to reward the net collectors. The handling of the fish on the islands' side has to change.

As to MACNA X and fish handling - that was the tail end of the cyanide-catch problems with the Philippines. Most importers knew the problems with Philippine fish and weren't importing them. Net-catching wasn't a big push in the Philippines back then. And, most fish don't come in labeled "net-caught" or "cyanide-caught." A few come in labeled "net-caught," the rest have no labeling at all, so no guarantee, implied or otherwise. Smart retailers buy their stock from wholesalers who buy from collectors who handle their catch well (hence, most of it survives to arrive at the LFS and get sold to hobbyists). Some even try and be "ecologically" aware and buy from wholesalers who deal in net-caught wild, or captive-bred fish.

But, given the choice between being ecologically aware and taking a loss on sick/dying fish (or corals) and going out of business, or buying healthy stock from a different source, most LFSs (and wholesalers, for that matter) will choose to stay in business - and I don't blame them, they have their own families to feed.

Kevin

 

[MaryHM]

It would be impossible to do what we have done in Fiji in the Philippines. In Fiji, the divers are employed by the collection station. We tell them what to get, they go get it and bring in back the same day. The Philippines have a much different system. Because the collection areas are so vast and remote it is impossible for a single exporter to employ all of its own divers. For instance, blue face angels are a 2 week collection trip. They're only found in a particular area and there are people that go to that area to collect the blue faces for the entire trade (cyanide caught I might add). Many of the species are like that- impossible to collect and return to the collection station in one day. Most villages will collect all of the "species x" for the entire trade and middlemen will distribute them out to the various exporters. I would never be personally/financially involved in something I couldn't have exclusive control over- and the Philippines allow for little/no control at the export level. Hence the serious handling issues.

 

[clarionreef]

It would be impossible to do what we have done in Fiji in the Philippines. In Fiji, the divers are employed by the collection station. We tell them what to get, they go get it and bring in back the same day. The Philippines have a much different system. Because the collection areas are so vast and remote it is impossible for a single exporter to employ all of its own divers. For instance, blue face angels are a 2 week collection trip. They're only found in a particular area and there are people that go to that area to collect the blue faces for the entire trade (cyanide caught I might add). Many of the species are like that- impossible to collect and return to the collection station in one day. Most villages will collect all of the "species x" for the entire trade and middlemen will distribute them out to the various exporters. I would never be personally/financially involved in something I couldn't have exclusive control over- and the Philippines allow for little/no control at the export level. Hence the serious handling issues.

Dear Mary,
Your analysis of the situation is of course. I just got back from collecting on Mexico and saw all the discourse on the Philippine situation.
Let me just say that I've always had 100 times more "supporters" than customers. There are 5,000 retailers in this country who buy saltwater fish and the number who would buy only netcaught ...I said ONLY netcaught for ethical, moral environmental reasons is of course negligible, ie...5 or 6. The tired old game of mixing some netcaught fish with cyanide caught fish and calling oneself "netcaught" has ruined the term, ruined the movement of reform and allowed fraud to dilute the truth to the degree that reformers will not prosper. In fact,honestly selling only netcaught fish may well be the kiss of death for a wholesaler.
I have always been jealous of dealers with such ill defined and vacillating ethics that they could pretend at this with so little effort while those of us who dare behave truthfully risk our financial lives every day.
Obviously, the massive repudiation of cyanide fish collecting reform by the population of American retailers has made it impossible to continue as a bill and rent paying wholesaler. Without surviving off the free grant money that 'institutional non-profit organizations ie.MAC and the IMA have historically drawn their livlihoods from...
we certainly cannot go thru the summer dealing in profitless and low variety shipments of net caught fish from SE Asia.
The training organizations that I have started and inspired have raised millions without solving the problem and they continue to this day to milk this cow.
Getting paid without producing results is something that only government people do I thought. I guess it applies to environmental groups as well. If only they did the job half as well as they claim, then netcaught wholesalers would have enough fish supply to survive on. and get a netcaught blue tang once in a while like EVERY OTHER WHOLESALER.
Netcaught shippers in the Philippines also thought there were more divers trained then there really are. Environmental fraud and retail insistance on cheap, cyanide fish have given us our destiny...an unsustainable industry that deserves its bad reputation.
My decades of reform efforts have hurt me financially very much and I cannot continue without support from customers or grant-givers who honestly seek a genuine way out of this reality.
So, I will be dealing in Mexican fish and invertebrates from my own station in Mexico if anyone needs anything. I can't keep talking about netcaught fish that no one wants to buy....I will be too busy producing them, as do you in Fiji..
Sincerely, Steve

 

[MaryHM]

For those of you who don't know, "cortez marine" is Steve Robinson- father of the net caught movement in the Philippines. The only other honest wholesaler I know in the United States when it comes to real net caught vs. sure it's net caught if you want it to be.