This may be my last post on this Forum, and likely this whole Board.
Whatever the TOS on Reefs.org are, I do not care for having my posts "article-ized" (in toto and with great length involved) without so much as a polite heads-up. I do however want to leave on a constructive and informative note, so here now, my opinion and experience, for whatever they are worth, with a gentleman's request that this NOT be appended to anyone's article
***
Foreword:
I am herewith not trying to prove anyone wrong, nor prove anyone right, but merely (re)opening another line of thought that it might be good to consider and discuss. Discussion is, after all, an honorable alternative to the name-calling, willful misrepresentation and disregard for basic courtesy that blights this Forum. Here goes:
Cyanide, the Philippines, and JMHE.
I. Personal Experience
II. Cyanide Use & Consequences
III. Alternative Methods and Failure
IV. Proposal
V. Conclusion
I. Personal Experience
It is always good to know the context in which information is being offered.
I am a private citizen of the Republic of the Philippines. Being Filipino alone does not a valid observer of the marine environment make. Indeed, many Filipinos have neither the time nor means to experience --and above all appreciate-- the marine bounty their country is blessed with.
By happy circumstance, I had the free time, the resources, and the desire to immerse myself (literally and figuratively) in the subject, and have done so for over three decades. I got my first glimpses of our marine wealth BEFORE it began to deteriorate; and deteriorate it did, in no small part due to commercial collection of aquarium ornamentals. I became an activist and contributed both time and resources under many names to many an organization, and was invariably rewarded with frustration over the politicking involved.
From the mid-80's to the mid-90's I got first hand exposure to the practice of cyanide fishing in the marine ornamental trade. Over time, my face was perhaps becoming too familiar and my age began to tell against such exertions, so I moved on, to contributing in other ways, and observing more docile aspects of the reef.
The Philippines has an awesome wealth of marine resources, and no single person can claim to have gotten more than a glimpse in time of a small part of it. Indeed, any observer ought to be humble enough to acknowledge that the most he can offer is but a glimpse. Take what I offer now as such.
Just my humble experience.
II. Cyanide Use & Consequences
The manner of cyanide use that I have personally observed has already been treated elsewhere, yet can be summarized thus:
Many collectors are pressured into purchasing cyanide from the wholesaler, else their catch is not entertained, and this recoups a substantial share of the wholesaler's purchasing costs. Cyanide is sold in solution or soluble tablet form, and loaded as solution into squirt bottles which are then taken on collection trips. Object fish are chased into rubble or live-coral refuges, and said refuges are then subjected to generous squirts of sodium cyanide solution.
This results in narcosis and/or death on the part of the fish, which are then removed from and brought to shore. There, the dead and dying are repeatedly culled until what remains are fish that will likely survive at least a few weeks more. Gross tissue damage to the liver and the gills, rather similar to the damage wrought by ammonia poisoning, is the usual mark upon the fish. Heightened color is also a common effect of exposure to cyanide, and is no small benefit to the wholesaler, as is supposedly the eradication of a number of hitchhiking parasites.
The fish mortality rate during and after cyanide capture is almost impossible to measure with any usefulness, given the variety of fish sizes and species, the variability of exposure to cyanide and even the concentration of the cyanide solution used, which can vary according to prevailing conditions: some experienced collectors fortify the solution when increased water movement (by location or time of the year) risks quick dispersal of the poison. This is done on a best-guesstimate basis. The most experienced collectors claim that they can gauge just how many squirts it takes to 'safely' stun an animal of given size without inflicting mortal hurt, and certainly, a number of cyanide-caught fish have gone on to live out prolonged captivities. This says nothing about harm to collaterals: other delicate reef organisms at the collection site that are NOT factored into consideration by the collector.
If controllable fish mortality within the context of cyanide-capture is a topic that bears argument, mortality of sessile invertebrates is not. The damage is apparent soon after a cyanide episode, in many cases one can see how the poison plumed with the current from the target site, by the trail of dead coral. Anyone suggesting the reef does not suffer substantially from cyanide fishing for ornamentals is, in my opinion, uninformed at best and likely malicious.
The squirt bottle is cheap, portable, applicable to almost any situation or part of the wild reef, and easy to repair or replace. It requires only one person to operate, and is brought to bear on target fish with an economy of time, preparation, and physical effort. It does not automatically require use of SCUBA gear. For the time consumed, and the equipment and operating cost, the yield is impressive (though damaged), even after the dead captures have been culled.
Belated mortality of the captures post-wholesale is not the collector's worry (and many collectors may not even be aware of such,) nor is it even the wholesaler's. Some retailers may even welcome it, for it can mean replacement purchases of fish by unwitting hobbyists.
Horrific as the toll on the reefs is, it just doesn't factor into many unscrupulous wholesalers' thinking. The collectors on the other hand often don't have the LUXURY of thinking: they do what they;re told, or they go penniless.
III. Alternatives Methods and Failure
Failure is a harsh judgment to render, but if the object of all the various 'reef-safe', 'alternative' collection methods was to displace cyanide fishing, then the alternatives have failed. There has been considerable time and effort invested towards their promotion.
This is not to say that the alternative methods do not work. Barrier nets, hand nets, plungers/slurp guns and the like all will work. But the dirty little non-secret is that (where remorseless fish capture is the sole concern) they do not work anywhere nearly as well as cyanide-fishing.
Barrier nets are subject to wear and tear, and can be very hard/expensive to obtain in the Philippines. They can also be time-consuming to deploy and do not lend themselves to application in many parts of the reef: they work best in the shallows, especially where there are small flats of sand in between coral superstructures. There is only a minimal amount of damage to the reef structure due to barrier-net use.
Barrier nets work well against smaller specimens of mostly-schooling species, IMHE. Once these fishes have been herded into the barrier, one can scoop them repeatedly into a collection mesh, the captives milling helplessly against the net. Larger "trophy" specimens and many of the feistier species do NOT fall for barrier traps, nor fail to escape them should they be cornered. Also, barrier nets that get away from a collector, or are carelessly discarded when damaged, pose a serious environmental hazard. After accounting for time consumed in setup, allowing the area to "relax", actual collection and proper stowage of the net, the yield can be satisfactory. There is the benefit of no toxic risk to the collector.
Hand Nets alone are simply inefficient. The yield pales in comparison to other methods, and involves more time and effort on the part of the collector. This method almost always demands the use of SCUBA equipment, which is an unrealistic requirement on collectors. There is the benefit of easy portability and of rapid applicability in almost any part of the reef. Certainly, there is no risk of toxic exposure to the collector. The yield is miniscule for the time consumed, when compared to barrier nets, IMHO. This seems a worthwhile enterprise only for the top-dollar showcase-size specimens, and against such wizened beasts, hand-netting can be a challenge.
Slurp Guns, once mastered, can be effective against even mid-size specimens. However, the physical demand on the collector is considerable over time, and the use of SCUBA equipment is practically mandatory, again an unrealistic requirement to present to collectors. For time, effort and cost, the yield can be miniscule compared to other methods.
Fixed Fish Traps are meant primarily for food fish, since the outcome is that most of the smaller fish captured wind up in the belly of the largest. They are thus not applicable to collection of the marine ornamentals, where even small specimens are marketable.
There are others, but none of the above methods can compare in terms of adaptability, portability, time-efficiency and cost-performance of a squirt bottle. The luxury of an environmentalist conscience aside, the ONLY downside a collector might see in the use of cyanide is largely-indirect damage to what may be his family's source of seafood, and personal exposure to the poison.
IV. Proposals
Efforts to convert collectors, or at least make them conversant in the aforementioned alternative collection methods should be continued.
Having said that, to effect a more immediate halt to the destructive practice of cyanide-fishing, I would propose that we learn something from the collectors: squirt-bottle use is simply the most efficient and energy-economical method for capturing fish, direct and collateral mortalities aside.
There has to be an acceptable soporific or narcotic that can directly replace the sodium cyanide solution in the bottles. Such material (usually diluted hospital anaesthetics) would:
1. benefit the reefs by reducing or eliminating collateral damage;
2. benefit the collectors by reducing target-fish mortalities;
3. benefit the hobbyist by improving the quality of the ornamental reef fish on the market.
One can inquire at almost any competent public aquarium engaged in wild capture of difficult fish, if one wants experienced information: por ejemplo, did not those puffed-up folks at the Steinhart resort to anaesthetic solutions to stun and collect garden eels in the Gulf of Mexico three decades ago? Many others should have since improved on the technique.
I say that there HAS to be such a material, capable supplanting cyanide, and really, would it be too great a challenge to find and provide it? I would guess that the sums spent on training collectors --and yes, on sustaining busywork bureaucrats-- could be partially used for subsidizing the testing, validation, purchase and distribution of an acceptable direct replacement for sodium cyanide solution: Identify ten anaesthetics already in use by public aquaria collectors and run simple cytotoxicity tests against a dozen representative and fragile species from the reef.
With a direct substitute for cyanide solution, there would be no collector-retraining required. Even if you ultimately perpetuate the unfair hold that wholesalers have on collectors, if you provide said wholesalers with reasonably-priced, superior new material, it guarantees use by collectors: the wholesalers would demand its use. By not reducting their oppressive control over collectors, you will likely meet less resistance in converting them to the new, reefsafe material.
Incentives might be offered, possibly a buy-back program, to eliminate standing stocks of sodium cyanide in the wholesalers' and collectors' possession, though the decrease in mortality of collected fish is enough attraction to cause abandonment of sodium cyanide use. The acceptable anaesthetic would possibly be many times more expensive than sodium cyanide. Possibly. But perhaps this can be offset by its effect of a decrease of fish mortalities, and if necessary, by some form of external subsidy. Or they could simply charge more per fish, with the hobby accepting the increase once the new material is proven reef-safe.
There are two flaws to this proposal that come to my mind (though others are assuredly there to be picked out by readers)
1. This might yield improvements primarily in the ornamental sector. Food-fish need to smell and taste right. Cyanide-caught food-fish, given a few days in open-circuit, will excrete all cyanide traces, and to begin with, the poison leaves apparently no effect whatsoever on the taste and texture of stunned fish. Too many anaesthetics smell bad and taste worse, and can remain on the fish for extended periods --this is obviously not a concern for ornamentals, but is unaceptable in the live-foodfish trade. Possibly the new material can accomodate this concern.
2. The remote potential is there for abuse of the new anaesthetic, insofar as the illegal narcotics trade is concerned. Some Chinese wholesalers (some of whom have astonishingly attained positions of respectability in the reform movement) simply cannot be trusted with the welfare of the reefs, and have shown ample disegard for he health of human beings by imposing cyanide's risks on collectors' entire families --would they hesitate to cash in on illegal drugs? FWIW, the illegal drug trade in the Philippines (primarily methamphetamine hydrochloride) is clearly the province of illegal Chinese aliens, aided and abetted by Chinese Filipinos.
I (and certainly, I presume, others) have been suggesting this avenue for possible study for decades now, and always the hypothetical stumbling block is monitoring for both cheat-use of cyanide, and for possible abuse of the anaesthetic in the illegal drug trade (even opening such a risk is political suicide, hence the need for thorough evaluation of any proposed reef-safe substitutel).
Insofar as cheating is concerned, I would offer that the collector and the wholesaler will simply migrate to whatever material performs better, regardless of monitoring: if it kills no fish, it makes more money; if it doesn't harm the reefs they get hobbyist acceptance and maybe increased sales. The new material would have to undergo lab and field testing, both for safety and efficiency, and only such a superior product would be offered as an alternative, to ensure conversion.
Insofar as abuse towards illegal drugs are concerned, I can only say that cocaine, illegal morphine and derivatives are not popular here despite decades of availability. Methamphetamine hydrochloride and to a lesser extent cannabinols are the narcotics of choice in this country, almost to exclusivity, and would be very hard to displace to any extent by a potential newcomer. The reform movement furthermore has a lust for funding monitoring as it is, and if so, it can easily drop the same silver for this proposal. We've been hypothesizing on the side of safety, but certainly, not all anaesthetics can be profitably (or at all) rendered into marketable, illegal narcotics.
It has been twenty years since this concept was first broached, and I know of no serious attempt to systematically identify, test and modify a reef-safe substitute material to replace sodium cyanide. Time was short back then, and is scarcer now.
I once heard a bitter colleague recall the practical definition of insanity while describing net-training efforts over the years. That was terribly unfair of her, for there really HAS been progress, but on the suspicion that there isn't enough time left to accomodate its pace, I am reviving an alternate line of discussion.
V. Conclusion
The reform movement has channeled quite a bit of wealth, time and effort into retraining collectors to adopt sometimes-more-difficult, and often lower-yield alternative capture methods. It has been a long, hard slog for which the reformists should be commended.
Perhaps some share of that wealth and effort can go into serious testing, performance-validation, and perhaps-subsidized distribution of a direct liquid replacement for sodium cyanide solution (and there has certainly been precedent for successful use of such material).
There is already an obsession with monitoring within the movement that should serve us well, should the new material (and any potential abuse of it) be deemed needful of monitoring.
I hold that if any alternative is proven superior in absolute performance AND in cost-efficiency and yet requires no re-training, or additional equipment purchases, it no longer becomes an alternative.
It simply becomes the choice.
Just my humble experience, speaking.
Discuss. Or dismiss.
...politely.
****
Whatever the TOS on Reefs.org are, I do not care for having my posts "article-ized" (in toto and with great length involved) without so much as a polite heads-up. I do however want to leave on a constructive and informative note, so here now, my opinion and experience, for whatever they are worth, with a gentleman's request that this NOT be appended to anyone's article
***
Foreword:
I am herewith not trying to prove anyone wrong, nor prove anyone right, but merely (re)opening another line of thought that it might be good to consider and discuss. Discussion is, after all, an honorable alternative to the name-calling, willful misrepresentation and disregard for basic courtesy that blights this Forum. Here goes:
Cyanide, the Philippines, and JMHE.
I. Personal Experience
II. Cyanide Use & Consequences
III. Alternative Methods and Failure
IV. Proposal
V. Conclusion
I. Personal Experience
It is always good to know the context in which information is being offered.
I am a private citizen of the Republic of the Philippines. Being Filipino alone does not a valid observer of the marine environment make. Indeed, many Filipinos have neither the time nor means to experience --and above all appreciate-- the marine bounty their country is blessed with.
By happy circumstance, I had the free time, the resources, and the desire to immerse myself (literally and figuratively) in the subject, and have done so for over three decades. I got my first glimpses of our marine wealth BEFORE it began to deteriorate; and deteriorate it did, in no small part due to commercial collection of aquarium ornamentals. I became an activist and contributed both time and resources under many names to many an organization, and was invariably rewarded with frustration over the politicking involved.
From the mid-80's to the mid-90's I got first hand exposure to the practice of cyanide fishing in the marine ornamental trade. Over time, my face was perhaps becoming too familiar and my age began to tell against such exertions, so I moved on, to contributing in other ways, and observing more docile aspects of the reef.
The Philippines has an awesome wealth of marine resources, and no single person can claim to have gotten more than a glimpse in time of a small part of it. Indeed, any observer ought to be humble enough to acknowledge that the most he can offer is but a glimpse. Take what I offer now as such.
Just my humble experience.
II. Cyanide Use & Consequences
The manner of cyanide use that I have personally observed has already been treated elsewhere, yet can be summarized thus:
Many collectors are pressured into purchasing cyanide from the wholesaler, else their catch is not entertained, and this recoups a substantial share of the wholesaler's purchasing costs. Cyanide is sold in solution or soluble tablet form, and loaded as solution into squirt bottles which are then taken on collection trips. Object fish are chased into rubble or live-coral refuges, and said refuges are then subjected to generous squirts of sodium cyanide solution.
This results in narcosis and/or death on the part of the fish, which are then removed from and brought to shore. There, the dead and dying are repeatedly culled until what remains are fish that will likely survive at least a few weeks more. Gross tissue damage to the liver and the gills, rather similar to the damage wrought by ammonia poisoning, is the usual mark upon the fish. Heightened color is also a common effect of exposure to cyanide, and is no small benefit to the wholesaler, as is supposedly the eradication of a number of hitchhiking parasites.
The fish mortality rate during and after cyanide capture is almost impossible to measure with any usefulness, given the variety of fish sizes and species, the variability of exposure to cyanide and even the concentration of the cyanide solution used, which can vary according to prevailing conditions: some experienced collectors fortify the solution when increased water movement (by location or time of the year) risks quick dispersal of the poison. This is done on a best-guesstimate basis. The most experienced collectors claim that they can gauge just how many squirts it takes to 'safely' stun an animal of given size without inflicting mortal hurt, and certainly, a number of cyanide-caught fish have gone on to live out prolonged captivities. This says nothing about harm to collaterals: other delicate reef organisms at the collection site that are NOT factored into consideration by the collector.
If controllable fish mortality within the context of cyanide-capture is a topic that bears argument, mortality of sessile invertebrates is not. The damage is apparent soon after a cyanide episode, in many cases one can see how the poison plumed with the current from the target site, by the trail of dead coral. Anyone suggesting the reef does not suffer substantially from cyanide fishing for ornamentals is, in my opinion, uninformed at best and likely malicious.
The squirt bottle is cheap, portable, applicable to almost any situation or part of the wild reef, and easy to repair or replace. It requires only one person to operate, and is brought to bear on target fish with an economy of time, preparation, and physical effort. It does not automatically require use of SCUBA gear. For the time consumed, and the equipment and operating cost, the yield is impressive (though damaged), even after the dead captures have been culled.
Belated mortality of the captures post-wholesale is not the collector's worry (and many collectors may not even be aware of such,) nor is it even the wholesaler's. Some retailers may even welcome it, for it can mean replacement purchases of fish by unwitting hobbyists.
Horrific as the toll on the reefs is, it just doesn't factor into many unscrupulous wholesalers' thinking. The collectors on the other hand often don't have the LUXURY of thinking: they do what they;re told, or they go penniless.
III. Alternatives Methods and Failure
Failure is a harsh judgment to render, but if the object of all the various 'reef-safe', 'alternative' collection methods was to displace cyanide fishing, then the alternatives have failed. There has been considerable time and effort invested towards their promotion.
This is not to say that the alternative methods do not work. Barrier nets, hand nets, plungers/slurp guns and the like all will work. But the dirty little non-secret is that (where remorseless fish capture is the sole concern) they do not work anywhere nearly as well as cyanide-fishing.
Barrier nets are subject to wear and tear, and can be very hard/expensive to obtain in the Philippines. They can also be time-consuming to deploy and do not lend themselves to application in many parts of the reef: they work best in the shallows, especially where there are small flats of sand in between coral superstructures. There is only a minimal amount of damage to the reef structure due to barrier-net use.
Barrier nets work well against smaller specimens of mostly-schooling species, IMHE. Once these fishes have been herded into the barrier, one can scoop them repeatedly into a collection mesh, the captives milling helplessly against the net. Larger "trophy" specimens and many of the feistier species do NOT fall for barrier traps, nor fail to escape them should they be cornered. Also, barrier nets that get away from a collector, or are carelessly discarded when damaged, pose a serious environmental hazard. After accounting for time consumed in setup, allowing the area to "relax", actual collection and proper stowage of the net, the yield can be satisfactory. There is the benefit of no toxic risk to the collector.
Hand Nets alone are simply inefficient. The yield pales in comparison to other methods, and involves more time and effort on the part of the collector. This method almost always demands the use of SCUBA equipment, which is an unrealistic requirement on collectors. There is the benefit of easy portability and of rapid applicability in almost any part of the reef. Certainly, there is no risk of toxic exposure to the collector. The yield is miniscule for the time consumed, when compared to barrier nets, IMHO. This seems a worthwhile enterprise only for the top-dollar showcase-size specimens, and against such wizened beasts, hand-netting can be a challenge.
Slurp Guns, once mastered, can be effective against even mid-size specimens. However, the physical demand on the collector is considerable over time, and the use of SCUBA equipment is practically mandatory, again an unrealistic requirement to present to collectors. For time, effort and cost, the yield can be miniscule compared to other methods.
Fixed Fish Traps are meant primarily for food fish, since the outcome is that most of the smaller fish captured wind up in the belly of the largest. They are thus not applicable to collection of the marine ornamentals, where even small specimens are marketable.
There are others, but none of the above methods can compare in terms of adaptability, portability, time-efficiency and cost-performance of a squirt bottle. The luxury of an environmentalist conscience aside, the ONLY downside a collector might see in the use of cyanide is largely-indirect damage to what may be his family's source of seafood, and personal exposure to the poison.
IV. Proposals
Efforts to convert collectors, or at least make them conversant in the aforementioned alternative collection methods should be continued.
Having said that, to effect a more immediate halt to the destructive practice of cyanide-fishing, I would propose that we learn something from the collectors: squirt-bottle use is simply the most efficient and energy-economical method for capturing fish, direct and collateral mortalities aside.
There has to be an acceptable soporific or narcotic that can directly replace the sodium cyanide solution in the bottles. Such material (usually diluted hospital anaesthetics) would:
1. benefit the reefs by reducing or eliminating collateral damage;
2. benefit the collectors by reducing target-fish mortalities;
3. benefit the hobbyist by improving the quality of the ornamental reef fish on the market.
One can inquire at almost any competent public aquarium engaged in wild capture of difficult fish, if one wants experienced information: por ejemplo, did not those puffed-up folks at the Steinhart resort to anaesthetic solutions to stun and collect garden eels in the Gulf of Mexico three decades ago? Many others should have since improved on the technique.
I say that there HAS to be such a material, capable supplanting cyanide, and really, would it be too great a challenge to find and provide it? I would guess that the sums spent on training collectors --and yes, on sustaining busywork bureaucrats-- could be partially used for subsidizing the testing, validation, purchase and distribution of an acceptable direct replacement for sodium cyanide solution: Identify ten anaesthetics already in use by public aquaria collectors and run simple cytotoxicity tests against a dozen representative and fragile species from the reef.
With a direct substitute for cyanide solution, there would be no collector-retraining required. Even if you ultimately perpetuate the unfair hold that wholesalers have on collectors, if you provide said wholesalers with reasonably-priced, superior new material, it guarantees use by collectors: the wholesalers would demand its use. By not reducting their oppressive control over collectors, you will likely meet less resistance in converting them to the new, reefsafe material.
Incentives might be offered, possibly a buy-back program, to eliminate standing stocks of sodium cyanide in the wholesalers' and collectors' possession, though the decrease in mortality of collected fish is enough attraction to cause abandonment of sodium cyanide use. The acceptable anaesthetic would possibly be many times more expensive than sodium cyanide. Possibly. But perhaps this can be offset by its effect of a decrease of fish mortalities, and if necessary, by some form of external subsidy. Or they could simply charge more per fish, with the hobby accepting the increase once the new material is proven reef-safe.
There are two flaws to this proposal that come to my mind (though others are assuredly there to be picked out by readers)
1. This might yield improvements primarily in the ornamental sector. Food-fish need to smell and taste right. Cyanide-caught food-fish, given a few days in open-circuit, will excrete all cyanide traces, and to begin with, the poison leaves apparently no effect whatsoever on the taste and texture of stunned fish. Too many anaesthetics smell bad and taste worse, and can remain on the fish for extended periods --this is obviously not a concern for ornamentals, but is unaceptable in the live-foodfish trade. Possibly the new material can accomodate this concern.
2. The remote potential is there for abuse of the new anaesthetic, insofar as the illegal narcotics trade is concerned. Some Chinese wholesalers (some of whom have astonishingly attained positions of respectability in the reform movement) simply cannot be trusted with the welfare of the reefs, and have shown ample disegard for he health of human beings by imposing cyanide's risks on collectors' entire families --would they hesitate to cash in on illegal drugs? FWIW, the illegal drug trade in the Philippines (primarily methamphetamine hydrochloride) is clearly the province of illegal Chinese aliens, aided and abetted by Chinese Filipinos.
I (and certainly, I presume, others) have been suggesting this avenue for possible study for decades now, and always the hypothetical stumbling block is monitoring for both cheat-use of cyanide, and for possible abuse of the anaesthetic in the illegal drug trade (even opening such a risk is political suicide, hence the need for thorough evaluation of any proposed reef-safe substitutel).
Insofar as cheating is concerned, I would offer that the collector and the wholesaler will simply migrate to whatever material performs better, regardless of monitoring: if it kills no fish, it makes more money; if it doesn't harm the reefs they get hobbyist acceptance and maybe increased sales. The new material would have to undergo lab and field testing, both for safety and efficiency, and only such a superior product would be offered as an alternative, to ensure conversion.
Insofar as abuse towards illegal drugs are concerned, I can only say that cocaine, illegal morphine and derivatives are not popular here despite decades of availability. Methamphetamine hydrochloride and to a lesser extent cannabinols are the narcotics of choice in this country, almost to exclusivity, and would be very hard to displace to any extent by a potential newcomer. The reform movement furthermore has a lust for funding monitoring as it is, and if so, it can easily drop the same silver for this proposal. We've been hypothesizing on the side of safety, but certainly, not all anaesthetics can be profitably (or at all) rendered into marketable, illegal narcotics.
It has been twenty years since this concept was first broached, and I know of no serious attempt to systematically identify, test and modify a reef-safe substitute material to replace sodium cyanide. Time was short back then, and is scarcer now.
I once heard a bitter colleague recall the practical definition of insanity while describing net-training efforts over the years. That was terribly unfair of her, for there really HAS been progress, but on the suspicion that there isn't enough time left to accomodate its pace, I am reviving an alternate line of discussion.
V. Conclusion
The reform movement has channeled quite a bit of wealth, time and effort into retraining collectors to adopt sometimes-more-difficult, and often lower-yield alternative capture methods. It has been a long, hard slog for which the reformists should be commended.
Perhaps some share of that wealth and effort can go into serious testing, performance-validation, and perhaps-subsidized distribution of a direct liquid replacement for sodium cyanide solution (and there has certainly been precedent for successful use of such material).
There is already an obsession with monitoring within the movement that should serve us well, should the new material (and any potential abuse of it) be deemed needful of monitoring.
I hold that if any alternative is proven superior in absolute performance AND in cost-efficiency and yet requires no re-training, or additional equipment purchases, it no longer becomes an alternative.
It simply becomes the choice.
Just my humble experience, speaking.
Discuss. Or dismiss.
...politely.
****
Dumb analogy, but it's late and I'm pretty burned out.
