John Tullock Live

Our Hobby Blamed for Reef Damage

Reef aquarists know what happens when they allow the pH of their tanks to drop.  Corals are affected adversely.  Scientists are warning that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere as a result of human activities are contributing to coral reef destruction worldwide due increased acidification of the ocean.  Add this to the other stresses to which reefs are subjected, and we have a recipe for ecological disaster.  These days, reef biologists continually refer to “the coral reef crisis,” by which is meant the accelerated loss of reefs that has taken place in the past few decades.

No one argues that reefs are in trouble worldwide.  Most of the scientific disagreement regards the exact nature of the particular stress(es) responsible for local observations of reef degradation.  It is often difficult, if not impossible, to tease out a single destructive factor from the plethora of insults to which reefs are subjected on a daily basis.  Pollution, overfishing, and climate change all take a toll.  The cumulative result of all these problems has been the loss of as much as one-fourth of the world’s reefs.

The Caribbean Coral Reef Institute, a cooperative effort between the University of Puerto Rico and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, lists bleaching, disease, eutrophication, invasive species, overfishing, physical damage, pollution, and sedimentation as threats. http://ccri.uprm.edu/threats.html

The World Resources Institute has estimated that 58 percent of reefs worldwide are threatened by human activities.  Of these, the most critically endangered are those in Southeast Asia, the primary source of specimens for the aquarium trade.  Over 80 percent of that region’s reefs, according to a WRI report, are under siege.  The organization identified five “hot spots” of reef destruction.  Topping the list was the Philippines, followed by Indonesia, Tanzania, the Comoros Islands, and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.  http://pdf.wri.org/reefs.pdf

The world has only about 225,000 square kilometers of coral reefs.  This sounds like a lot, but it represents only about one-third the area of Texas, or ten times that of New Jersey.  Despite the relatively small number of reefs, it is estimated they provide economic benefits in the range of US$30 billion per year worldwide.   Tourism accounts for a large proportion of the economic activity generated by reefs, and is adversely affected when reefs are damaged.  In the late 90s, for example, about half the corals in Palau died from a major bleaching event, and by 2001 tourism had declined as much as ten percent.

A tiny fraction of both economic benefit and reef destruction, of course, is accounted for by the aquarium trade.  The most recent estimate I could find placed the value of the US aquarium trade in reef organisms at half a billion dollars.

You can read the bad news about reefs for yourself in the reports cited.  What are the implications for the aquarium trade?  The Pacific Fisheries Coalition says aquarium collecting harms reefs in Hawaii. http://www.pacfish.org/wpapers/aquarium.html   The American Association for the Advancement of Science in a 2001 report said “There is an urgent need to develop positive trade regimes so that only products from reefs under sustainable management plans are allowed into or out of the U.S., to ensure that consumer demand by Americans is not contributing to the decline and degradation of coral reefs.” http://www.aaas.org/international/africa/coralreefs/Coral_Reefs.pdf
The aquarium trade remains in focus as a contributor to reef degradation.  The issues, therefore, remain much as they were a decade ago.  Rather than being seen as a tool for education about reefs and reef conservation, the aquarium trade is seen as part of the problem.  The most significant effort to address the problem by the aquarium industry, the Marine Aquarium Council www.aquariumcouncil.org , is widely considered to be impotent.  While MAC promises that certification leads to healthier fish and lower mortality, the retail dealers with whom I have spoken say this is not the case.  Many cite problems associated with handling by wholesalers and difficulties related to air cargo shipment.  These problems as equal to, or greater than, those arising from destructive fishing practices, the issue that spawned MAC in the first place.

One thing is for sure, as reefs decline, calls for regulation of the marine aquarium trade will increase.  Efforts to discourage marine aquarium keeping have become quite sophisticated.  Check out the video link below, posted exactly one year ago today.  Be warned.  If you think the marine aquarium hobby does more good than harm, the video will likely offend you.  But rather than getting your dander up, try to think of what the hobby and industry might do to counter such criticism.  Email me with your ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73ubulR9JwQ

Is Our Hobby In Trouble?

Despite conditions in the economy, several of the dealers I’ve spoken with say they’re doing fine.  Back in the good old days of the 90s, my store did all right during tough times, too.  People kept coming in for food and supplies, even though they might not buy a new fish or splurge on a bigger setup.  Vance Peters, owner of Vance’s Tropical Fish in Bucksport, ME, offered up a theory when we spoke recently.  Vance suggested that when people are stressed out they turn to their hobbies for relaxation.  He says he’s had a surge in business during the past few months.

Nobody denies that it’s relaxing to watch your aquarium, so Vance may be on to something.  Other sources seem to bear him out.  For example, in a recent email newsletter Ralph Cabage, owner of Aquarium Life Support Systems, a wholesaler in Knoxville, TN, reports that his sales were up in 2008, noting that such results are “No small feat in this environment.”  Agreed.

And consider this observation from a CNN report on the consumer electronics show:

Many Americans are struggling to pay bills, find jobs and even avoid foreclosure, so it may seem like an extravagance to spend hundreds of dollars on a laptop or a digital camera. But financial fears also are leading folks to stay home. Electronics industry observers think this nesting trend could increase demand for Blu-ray players, stereos and video games.

Nesting Trends

Surely the “nesting trend” also applies to aquarium enthusiasts.  This post from Pet Product News bears out that hypothesis.  (Scroll down to the graphic at the bottom of the page.)

One would also expect, though I have no data to support the contention, that the large discount online dealers would be doing well, as hobbyists seek to reduce their costs by any means possible.

Despite these good news reports, however, I wonder how many dealers are having a hard time staying open.  One local store closed this summer even before its doors were open to the public.  If I had to guess, I would say credit issues were to blame.  Small retailers must typically rely on bank credit to manage their cash flow.

Rumor has it another local shop is going down, as well.  I hope they survive, though, because local competition is good for both hobbyists and the dealers themselves.  Competition generates greater interest in the hobby, exposing more people to the delights of aquarium keeping.  When an area has many shops, it also has many hobbyists, and usually a fish club or two.  Twenty years ago, when I opened Aquatic Specialists, there were seven aquarium stores within half an hour’s drive of downtown.  Today, there are only three, one of which may not survive.  We do have full line pet stores that also carry fish alongside dogs, cats, birds, etc., but I am talking about successful aquarium-only shops. How did we get to this point?

Assigning Blame

No doubt, a combination of factors is to blame.  Economic hardship certainly cannot be ruled out.  Lord knows, almost everyone has taken some kind of hit, on investments, home values, maybe even their job.  But the economic disaster is barely a year old, so we must look elsewhere to explain the overall decline.

One factor is the vastly increased availability of virtual pastimes, such as computer games, online social networking, and similar tech trends that compete for people’s leisure time and their disposable income.  Email was almost unheard of, for example, when my store opened in 1987, and data transfer rates were measured in bits per second, not mega-bits per second.

Another technology-related issue is the improvement in air transport.  This has been a double-edged sword for aquarium businesses.  On the one hand, it has led to greater availability of fish and invertebrates from far-flung corners of the planet.  On the other hand, when people can so easily visit a tropical reef or rainforest, they may not have so great a desire to keep denizens of these habitats at home.  Why settle for the faux reef, when a real one is as close as your credit card?

Many independent retailers see e-commerce and large discounters as the major threat to their survival.  About eighteen months ago, then-president Burton Patrick posted a letter on the AMDA web site that leaves no doubt about his position on this issue. (Full disclosure: I founded AMDA in 1995, but have not been an active participant since I sold my interest in Aquatic Specialists a couple of years later.)

I agree with Patrick that the brick and mortar retailer often finds himself outdone on many fronts by the bigger concerns.  Cabage’s newsletter cites many of the same problems that Patrick enumerates.

Regardless of where we assign blame, the bottom line is that we have fewer local shops and fewer people entering the aquarium hobby.  What can we do to stop the downward trend and hopefully reverse it?

Buy Local

Support your local dealer.  I’ve heard and read plenty of hobbyists’ complaints about plenty of dealers.  Nevertheless, we must recognize that local retail shops are the primary source of recruitment for new hobbyists.  They also sell the majority of aquarium tanks.

Shipping costs, according to one online dealer site, will add a minimum of $100-plus to the cost of a glass tank.

Acrylic tanks are less costly to ship, but nevertheless the additional expense is anything but negligible. As a rule, direct shipping is practical only for really large tanks, or nano-reef sizes.  Neither of these is particularly appropriate for a beginner.

That leaves the local shop as the best source for a tank in the 20 to 40 gallon range that most people will want for a first aquarium.  Unfortunately, shops cannot make enough money on these sales alone to remain in business.  They need repeat sales of food and supplies, products that these days a great many people buy online.

Changing this situation is a tough nut to crack, but it will have to happen or the entire industry can collapse.  When the number of aquarium hobbyists falls below a critical point, even the biggest online stores will have to look elsewhere for revenues.

How can we save our hobby and keep prices reasonable, too?  I certainly do not have the answer, but I am willing to bet there is a way.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

 

Bringing Back the Rare Logperches

Percina rex, the Roanoak Logperch

Among my favorite native fish species, the various logperches rank highly. A closely related group of large darters, the four species found closest to my home share an elongated snout and use it to flip over small stones in order to feed on the invertebrates found underneath. Conservation Fisheries has worked with all four of these logperch species and has enjoyed limited success in propagating them.

I mentioned Percina jenkinsi, the Conasauga Logperch, in an earlier post. Today's comments concern three additional species. Conservation Fisheries pioneered the idea of using “surrogate” species to develop captive propagation protocols. A relatively common and widespread species is selected for first attempts, so that the inevitable mistakes will not be made with another, much rarer species.

  In this case, the Common Logperch, Percina caprodes, has served as a surrogate for two of its far less common relatives. In learning how to rear common logperch, the biologists utilized techniques they developed for the culture of other darter species. Most of the difficulties stem from the problems encountered in working with the tiny, planktonic larvae.  Ultimately, over 1200 common logperch were produced.

Percina caprodes, Common Logperch.

An early beneficiary of the success with Common Logperch was the Blotchside Logperch, P. burtoni. Efforts to propagate this large darter began in 2004, with the collection of wild adults from Spring Creek, a tributary to the Hiwassee River. The intent was to restore populations to Little Tennessee River drainages. Eventually Conservation Fisheries succeeded in producing a few young. These are now on display at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Genetic analyses by Dr. Anna George of the Tennessee Aquarium Research Institute resulted in recommendations to utilize Little River as a source of parental stock for the effort. Little River fish were collected in 2007, but too late for any captive spawning. Hopefully, sufficient numbers will be produced for reintroductions this fall.

Blotchside Logperch, P. burtoni.

The large, impressively colored Roanoke Logperch, P. rex, is endangered. About a year ago, fourteen individuals were collected from the confluence of the North and South Fork Roanoke River near Roanoke, Virginia. They adapted quickly to captivity, swarming to the point where food was added to the tank whenever feeding was anticipated. With this species, too, it will be another season before Conservation Fisheries biologists are confident of their ability to rear them in large numbers.

   The logperches are but a few of the many fascinating fish that inhabit the streams of the Southeast. With continuing work by Conservation Fisheries and its partners, such as the Tennessee Aquarium, we can save these jewels of the mountains for future generations.