The marine aquarium hobby is growing by leaps and bounds.  Everyday thousands of marine organisms are collected from
the oceans and sold to hobbyist all over the world.  I, like so many others, am a marine hobbyist.  I keep a thirty gallon mini-reef aquarium.  This aquarium contains many live corals, anemones, starfish, fish, and a large assortment of beautiful marine life.  I didn't see any reason to think that maybe, just maybe my aquarium could possibly be hurting the environment.

 

For a single fish to make it alive to our aquariums, four to ten died along the way.  They die from bad handling at the collecting point, improper shipping, improper holding facilities, poisons used to collect them, and uninformed retailers and hobbyist.  How can we justify killing four to ten fish for every one that we keep in our aquariums.

 

I have found this to be an ethical dilemma.  I love to keep marine animals but, I also want to be responsible to the other creatures of this Earth.  These  problems could be resolved if we were to improve the facilities, starting with the collectors and go all the way to the retailers.  Another way that would go hand in hand with this would be to train everyone involved on the proper shipping and caring for the animals involved.  These two ideas alone would increase the chances of the animals living a long and normal life in the aquarium.

 

The problem still would exist though, even if in a lesser form.  No matter how careful we are there still will be some losses.  Are these losses justified by the good that is accomplished or not? 

 

The majority of the people that collect animals for the marine trade are poor people, who's living seems to only come from the sea.  If the aquarium trade was banned then how would they make their living.  Without the fish and invertebrate trade these people would starve.  Is the collecting of animals more important than feeding poor people?  These people could make a continuous living from their coral reefs if they were taught how to manage it as a renewable resource.

 

One of the major obstacles to this course of action is finding the funding to train and equip the people to fish correctly.  How many people in the United States would part with their hard earned cash to help a fellow human being in the Philippines?

 

Getting people to care about something usually means that you must put it right in front of their noses.  Once people see something then they usually take notice, and possibly begin to care about it.  For this reason I believe that we should keep on collecting animals for the aquarium trade but, in a better way.  I can use myself as an example.  If I had not gotten involved with the hobby then I would have never seen a living coral or marine angelfish.  I would not be writing for the hobbyist magazines, preaching on responsibility.  As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for the allowed collection of live marine fishes and invertebrates, I probably would care less, because I would never have seen them.

 

Hobbyist learn from what they see.  When a person walks into a public aquarium or any other place where the living animals are kept, they get to see the live animals.  This response usually brings interest.  Interest in the first step in caring about something.  Hobbyist, through their love of the animals, passes on their passion to otherwise non-caring individuals.

 

As mentioned earlier, funds are needed badly to help teach natives on proper fishing methods.  Where will the funds come from?  The wealthy industrialized nations whose populace is well educated will provide it for the world.  We are a prime example of a nation that educates its people through non-restricting laws.  When we see something that needs our help, we may reach out because we now how important it is.

 

Captive rearing of as many species as possible would greatly help benefit our oceans.  The problem though is that captive
reared animals are more expensive than their wild cousins.  The price difference may not be extreme, but it does influence the non informed hobbyist.  Myself, I always try to purchase captive bred specimens.  I believe that this is one of the ways that I can help our environment and our hobby.

 

I would even go one step further, I would make it illegal to collect marine animals that are being commercially raised in captivity.  This would force the purchase of captive raised  animals.  This would not only help the companies that are trying to rear marine animals, but it would also make us more responsible in the eyes of environmental organizations.  Lets face it, we need to score points with these agencies.  They are trying to force us out of the hobby.

 

The only exception that I would have to the above ban would be to allow special permits to be given out to commercial companies and private breeders that want to raise these animals.  We can't totally ban collecting captive reared animals because we do need to have a diversified DNA pool.

 

After giving this much thought, I have come to the conclusion that with responsible efforts and results, the marine hobby is a great benefit to all of us.  Lets all work together to keep it around for all of our future generations to come.