“A black eye on the industry”

This story has been making the rounds today and understandably, people are outraged.  610 reef fish were found dead in a dumpster in Honokohau, HI over the weekend.  Of the fish, 550 were yellow tangs, leading to speculation that the fish were part of an aquarium setup gone wrong.

From the article (via our friends at Glassbox):

Of the 610 fish, 551 were yellow tang — a species that represents more than 80 percent of the aquarium catch in West Hawaii waters. The remaining 59 fish comprised six other species, including butterflyfish and surgeonfish. All the dumped fish had no outward signs of illness or injury, said Bill Walsh, state aquatic biologist.

Nearly half of the yellow tang were recruits, very small individuals newly settled on the reef. Recruits usually start settling in summer months and by December are larger in size, which leads the Division of Aquatic Resources to believe these yellow tangs were not collected recently.

There are no leads on who dumped the fish:

Still the state agency doesn’t know who is responsible or exactly why the fish were dumped. Perhaps, a tropical fish collector collected them all at once, had a holding tank failure and disposed of the fish at the same time. Maybe an aquarium system failed or became contaminated, leading a wholesaler to store sick individuals in a freezer and only recently decide to dispose of the fish, Walsh said.

Most people have condemned the loss of life including industry leaders like Steven Pro calling it a “black eye on the industry”.  The fallout on the industry is not known yet.  Hawaii is the premium source for yellow tangs.  There are already limits on where yellow tangs can be caught and catch limits have been proposed.

If changes are put into place, hopefully they’re well thought through.  Reaction has been strong:

“For many, this was the tip of the thing lurking just under the surface. Locally, there have been concerns about the aquarium industry,” Walsh said. “This includes issues with inconsistent, poor and absent reporting by some collectors and wholesalers. There’s also the renegade element or lack of responsibility from a number of collectors who are systematically poaching fish in marine protected areas. … Many people feel we are granting (tropical fish collectors and exporters) a tremendous privilege by allowing them to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on our reefs and we’re getting nothing in return.”

Related posts:

1. Angels, tangs and wrasses
2. The Impact of Recession On Our Reefing Industry
3. Next Up For Ice Cap, Steven Pro
4. Caribbean Sea Lionfish Invasion?
5. What Is A Black Hole Sun?

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