[Quinn]

I am going to loose sleep over this thread. Here we go again...

Originally Posted by saltcreep

I will say that fundamentally this industry is much like any other, believe it or not. When you get down to the root of it, all the products, be it dry goods or live, are a commodity. Don't even drag oil companies into this argument...that's a whole other board for another day. The two industries don't even compare.

Obviously you're not looking at this from the same perspective as me then, because I think there are a lot of parallels here. Let's look at Shell in Nigeria when we compare, for a moment. We are talking about harvesting a natural resource, one that is only semi-renewable, from a foreign country, a foreign country that is in a state where they are desperate for foreign investment. These states are relatively young and underdeveloped, and do not have established protocol for the harvesting of natural resources. We do not need to discuss human rights infringements but we can certainly compare the two industries. Therefore I would argue that marine livestock collection in southeast Asia and oil drilling in Africa are relatively similar, versus say, the former and logging in British Columbia. This was my essential point.

Originally Posted by saltcreep

Industry greed...well I would like to add that you, the hobbyist (nobody specifically out there), are part of this industry, and thus, are part of the problem too. This is where the market forces come into play. Much is made of the collectors, exporters, importers, and LFS, but I don't here a peep on these boards when a hobbyist purchases a product that is unsuitable or at risk. Apparantly that is taboo. I agree that most of you are ones that actually care, but make up the minority of trade. There are a great many that make purchases solely on price. This could explain why the majority of the fish and inverts come from Indonesia or the Philippines. Check back to other discussions on this board and look at some of the comments. Hobbyists (few) would rather save money and purchase a fish that may have been caught with cyanide rather than pay a premium for a fish that is guaranteed caught without. Why don't you see coral beauties from either Fiji or Australia with any regularity? Answer - too much money for the average hobbyist when compared with the same fish from Indo or PI.

For every LFS there are probably several thousand aquarists. Therefore the power, I believe, lies more in their hands, and the hands of importers/wholesalers, to deal with unsuitable/at-risk animals, versus the hobbyists. Alan has pointed out that it is difficult for us hobbyists to tell a newbie not to put seahorses in a reef tank or not to buy a mandarin for a 20 gallon. The answer, once again, is to stop their importation or license their ownership. You say that none of the blame falls on the hobbyist - I hear where you are coming from, but how do you blame a child for manslaughter when the parent handed him a loaded gun? The stores, wholesalers and importers need to start acting responsibly, first off by helping educate newbies rather than pushing for the almighty dollar and secondly by restricting or working with the authorities to restrict certain species.

Originally Posted by saltcreep

Now take a look at captive bred product. Why isn't there more? Answer - see above. The average hobbyist again will balk at purchasing that CB clown because it's twice the price of the wild caught clown. I have 5 captive bred seahorses that I've had for seven weeks. I haven't sold single horse...because they are too expensive.

We'll balk at high costs yes, but what if the stores only sold captive-bred? Again you are trying to defer the blame, which sounds good, but doesn't make sense. If stores stopped stocking both and didn't note whether the animals were wild-caught or captive-bred, hobbyists wouldn't know the difference and wouldn't have a thing to balk about. Also, remember that the vast majority of fish have not been bred in captivity. As far as I know, it's limited to essentially certain types of clowns, damsels, gobies, angelfish, shrimps and seahorses, and with a few exceptions, we only see damsels and clownfish in stores.

The feeling I'm getting from the people on the commercial side of things here is that "it can't be done". Us hobbyists are saying "oh please, we know it's easy". I think the reality is somewhere in between, and I'll quote Caterpillar Corp's slogan from back in the 70s, a time when the public was just beginning to become aware of the environmental issues associated with the harvesting of natural resources: "There are no simple solutions, only intelligent choices". And I'll add my own maxim to this, for good measure: "There are no simple answers to complex problems. Anyone who thinks there are is an idiot."