Its time to stop the silly games, there are far too many yellow tangs swimming around the Hawaiian waters (even by the researchers accounts) to have the few fish we collect as an industry have any effect. fifteen fish every 100msquare is a lot of yellow tangs along a 150 mile coast. The second most commonly collected fish Kole tangs are collected at ten times less! Less then one fish per day per mile of coastline.
There are so many of the most common collected fish species that it take collectors one forth of the time it use to take to collect the same number of fish!
CPUE data, which collectors submit to DAR, are somewhat surprising. For the
beginning of the 1980s, van Poolen and Obara (1984) found a CPUE of 13 animals per hour. In 1991, CPUE was 19 animals per hour, and until 1999 it increased to 62 animals per hour (see Figure 7.5). Collectors appear to have become more professional since 1984 (including use of advanced boats, overnight trips, life wells that allow storing of fish, use of scooters and nitrox diving by some collectors), which may account for part of the increase in CPUE. DAR - data also suggest that collections of rare, harder to catch, but more valuable species have decreased in favor of easier to catch species, especially Yellow Tang (own analysis). Nonetheless, a more than quadrupling of CPUE in less than 20 years would be enormous considering that no revolution in collection techniques has taken place.
The idea that MO collectors are killing coral is silly as well.
The waters around the Kona coast have very little live coral .
The majority of the coral reef area is located in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands (8,521 km2). Although the coral reef area in the Main Hawaiian Islands is smaller (2,536 km2), its economic importance outweighs that of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. For example, the annual number of visitors on the Main Islands is 11 million while the Northwest Island receive only 5000 visitors per year. Given this significant contrast in characteristics and the large difference in data availability, the present study will confine itself to the Main Hawaiian Islands.
There are approximately 60 named species of stony corals in the Hawaiian Archipelago (Maragos et al. in prep.) with an endemism of around 25%. Live coral cover in the Main Hawai`ian islands is around 18% on average for all sites surveyed under the Hawai`i Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (CRAMP). In addition, there are thought to be over 400 species of marine algae. There are 557 species of reef and shore fishes in Hawai`i, 100 species of sponges, 1071 species of mollusks, 884 species of crustaceans and 278 species of echinoderms (all data from Gulko et al. (2000); for references, see therein).
There is even less coral growing in the waters of the island Maui were practically no aquarium fish are collected.
Kihei’s algae: Algae blooms have been a recurring problem on reef flats off the southern and western coasts of Maui for many years. This has caused significant, but localized, disturbance to the beach front, both in terms of its unattractive appearance and unpleasant odor. Potential contributing factors include wastewater discharge, leaching of injection wells, storm water and agricultural runoff, and golf course runoff. This leads to nutrient enrichment of the shallow reef area, which can cause phytoplankton blooms. These blooms limit the amount of sunlight reaching stony corals, thereby affecting their health. The major algal blooms occur in the North Kihei area, which has an algae cover of over 50 percent. Algae cover in South Kihei, which has not had such problems, is estimated at around 5 percent. The North Kihei algae problem is both a costly nuisance and a direct biological threat to local coral resources.
Hanauma Bay is the remnant of the inside of a large volcano, whose crater partly
collapsed into the sea. The Bay is located southeast of Waikiki on O`ahu and is one of the most heavily used marine reserves in the world. The Hanauma Bay Marine Life Conservation District (MLCD), established in 1976, was the first MLCD in Hawai`i. Reef monitoring by CRAMP showed an average coral cover of 25.8 percent at 3-meter depth and 27.0 percent at 10 meter depth. Macro-algae coverage was very low, at around 2 percent, while percentages of crustose coralline algae and turf algae were high. Fish were abundant, with densities of 417 fish per 125 m2 at 3 m and 630 fish per 125 m2 at 10 m.
The Areas with good coral growth are being trmpled to death by the tourists.
In the late 1980s, Hanauma Bay was almost being ‘visited to death’ with 13,000 visitors a day at peak times. These crowds stirred up sediment, disturbed and trampled the coral and algae, dropped trash, fed the fish and left a slick of suntan lotion on the bay's surface.
There are so many tangs swimming off Kona Coast that the government banned the hand feeding of fish because this practice had allowed the tang populations to become too large.
measure the "before" and "after”: effects as part of his study. Aquatic Biologist Alton
Miyasaka of the DLNR expects that the following changes will occur when feeding is
curtailed:
* Fish populations will shift away from dull nenue (rudder fish) and pualu (surgeonfish)that thrive on artificial food supply and currently dominate the inshore reef.
* The nenue and pualu will be replaced by more colorful weke (goatfishes),
parrotfishes, butterfly fishes and damselfishes.
* There may be a decline in numbers of fishes, but reduction in larger fishes may be made up by increases in number of smaller fishes.
* Because the change will be gradual, no mass die-offs of any kind are expected.
The numbers of eels, which feed on other fish, may also gradually decline.
What makes all this really silly is that on one hand you have the public blaming the collectors for the non aquarium fish disappearing and on the other side you have the state researchers blaming too many tangs as to why the other fish cant be found!
Allowing this continued nonsense is actually killing the reefs of Hawaii. Using aquarium industry as a scape goat simply keeps the real problems from being addressed.
You all claim to care about the reefs, but it sure seems other wise.
All this information is available to anyone interested in whats really happening in Hawaii. Seems that most anti pet fish experts either know very little about their self aggrandized expertise........or they know full well what the facts are and are feeding us a load.
