Environmental Impact of our Hobby.

[kien]

Actually, I don't need sushi to live. It's just as much a luxury as the reef tank.

Mankind has domesticated plants and animals for eons. For various purposes and for better or for worse. Well, for both actually. Personally, I am under no delusion that I am helping the reefs in any way. What I do know that I am doing is my best to provide a long and healthy life for the creatures that are under my care. This includes the tank as well as my gerbils and all my house plants.

I'm no specialist by any stretch of the imagination, but I would like to think that the creatures that are captured for the trade have nearly an equal chance against any other natural predator. Yes, I know humans have an unfair advantage (tools, chemical, etc), but fundamentally we are just another predator. So yes, by extension I am a predator to these fish. However, I am probably the nicest predator they will ever encounter in their lifetime. If you gave them a choice between me and my 150g tank versus a barracuda, I wonder which they would choose.

Sorry, what was the question again?

[Aquattro]

This is pretty much me

Originally Posted by daplatapus

But ultimately I have a tank because because I love the look of a pretty blue box in my living room.

Justified kinda like this

Originally Posted by kien

If you gave them a choice between me and my 150g tank versus a barracuda, I wonder which they would choose.

Dom, not really trying to stir the pot(much), just engage in a bit of thought with what we do. When I have time to actually sit in front of my pretty blue box, I often think of these things.

Do we hurt? Sure, I don't think there's an argument against that. Does it matter in the big scheme of things? Probably not that much. As Kien says, how many fish do we save from those evil barracudas every year?

Perhaps those nights where we get to sit in front of the tank and ponder, we might ponder on how to make things better. Or eat popcorn. One of those.

[rsisvixen]

Well human kind is pretty much a negative impact on every environment on the planet if you really want to get down to it not just the reefs, and once we start really getting out into space more we'll probably find a way to negatively impact the solar system as well

But I digress, strides are being made to put corals back into the ocean and reefs and maybe one day we'll be able to reintroduce species back as well.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by rsisvixen

Well human kind is pretty much a negative impact on every environment on the planet if you really want to get down to it not just the reefs, and once we start really getting out into space more we'll probably find a way to negatively impact the solar system as well

Oh, for sure. I bet our reefing activities aren't even a blip on the radar compared to everything else I have more plastic in my TV than all my reef gear put together!