From: tse@ra.nrl.navy.mil (Anthony Tse)
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria
Subject: Re: Highlights and quotes from original Audubon article
Date: 7 Apr 92 21:39:43 GMT
Organization: Naval Research Labratory, Washington, DC


   First of all, I want to say that IMHO, collecting wild animals in
reefs DOES do some damage to the reef, however......

In article <1992Apr7.202722.26592@cs.ucla.edu> jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes:
>The annual tonnage I originally posted was off by a few orders of magnitude
>(sorry about that!).  It reports that between 500 and 600 tons of live rock
>were carried off the Florida Reef Tract in a 2 year period between 1989-1991.
   Ok, lets put this in prospective.  150 lbs of LR fill up half my
tank, so lets say 200 lbs fill up 2/3 of my tank.  My tank is 48" x 18"
x 18" or 9 cubic ft.  2/3 of that is 6 cubic ft.  So loosely packed, 500
tons will fill up a space of 30,000 cubic ft, or a 31' x 31' x 31' room.
Pretty big for a room, but compare to 1250 miles of Great Barrier
Reef....

>There is a quote of Julian Sprung, possibly taken out of context:
>"Collectors are convenient targets.  People are the problem along the reef."
    Sounded to me like he's really good at taking things out of context.
And I don't see anything wrong with the quote.

>James Proter, a professor of zoology at U. of Georgia said that the Florida
>reef tracts "most beautiful and productive areas are declining so rapidly, they
>might have fewer than 10 years to live.
    More thing taken out of context.  Is he going to tell me if we shut
down the marine hobbists, his estimation of 10 years is going to change?
I don't think so.

>On the Phillipine cyanide collection situation:  "McAllister said that 400 of 
>the 1500 people working the reef are now catching fish by hand, although
>providing them with nets and breaking the power of middlemen, who also supply
>the sodium cyanide, is proving difficult".
    There must be some way we can put a stop to this.

>Walter Jaap is quoted: "'If you go to an airport and open a container of live
>rock, there's no water. Animals are dying. There's a putrid sulfide smell'".
    Like I told you in private email, it depends on who you are dealing
with.  I got my rocks in my tank less then 12 hrs after it was
collected, no smell, little die off.  Beside, why are you so excited
about LR die off?  The stuff in my LR reproduce like rabbits in my tank,
they are definitely renewable.

>"Jaap reports that in Florida, 'the visibility of macro-invertebrates has 
>diminished over the past ten years.  There is a feeling that the Oreaster 
   You are the one who said the hobby didn't bloom until 4 yrs ago,
therefore, the  decline must be caused by something else, like
pollution.  I saw a show on PBS saying the fertilizer run off is causing
major algea blooms in the Golf and is killing mega coral.  The reason
why that made in on TV was because the algea clogged the water intake of
a nuclear power plant, not because the reefs are dying.

>The conclusion:
>"North American hobbyists alone spend some $240 million a year on equipment and
>animals, and there is seemingly no limit to their appetite.  Some take care not
   More thing taken out of context.  So how much of that 240 million do
you think are spent by reef keepers?  And keep in mind, a typical
reef tank cost $3000.  I would like to know how many reef keepers are
there in this country.  That would be a much better indication of how
big the hobby is.  I would guess that there are less then 50 reef keepers
in the Washington area.

-Anthony
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria