This morning I was re-reading portions of volume one of Fossa’s and Nilsen’s The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium (Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag 1996), and I once again found myself considering the closing section titled “Coral reef aquaristics – more than just a hobby.” Marine aquarists, Fossa and Nilsen argue in this section, are something more than “school boys or other childish persons.” Rather than a frivolous hobby, “aquaristics” is a gateway for scientific inquiry and environmentalism. I know these are the reasons I became serious about aquarium-keeping in the 1980s, and I know they remain my primary motivation for keeping aquaria today, but is this true for the hobby in general?
Being conversant in global climate change, the plight of tropical reefs and conservation was not a pre-requisite of the cocktail party circuit in the early- to mid-90s. Al Gore had barely invented the Internet, much the less raised the alarm regarding inconvenient truths. This was the context in which Fossa and Nilsen offered their book to an American audience and made their case for how marine aquaria could be a tool for change.
For example, Fossa and Nilsen quote Dr. Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian ethnologist, who says in 1980, “In a time in which most people’s thinking is becoming alienated from nature, it is encouraging to see an obvious steady increase in interest in marine animals and their care in saltwater aquariums.” Encouraging why? Because, Lorenz seems to imply, keeping marine animals in a home aquarium connects one to natural ecosystems and, by extension, engenders an appreciation and knowledge of those ecosystems and the animals which inhabit them.
Did it work? Did marine aquarium keeping play even a small role in the greening of America? Honestly I’m not sure, but it strikes me as interesting that some variation on the following statement is frequently bandied about today:
“In a time in which most people’s thinking is becoming more aligned with nature, it is discouraging to see an obvious steady increase in interest in marine animals and their care in saltwater aquariums.”
The Nay-Sayers, often environmentalists themselves, appear as adamant as ever that the hobby should be more intensely regulated or even shut down. Too often there is a latent distrust–even bordering on animosity—between many scientists and hobbyists. While the marine aquarium industry has grown significantly in recent years (current economic slowdown excluded), the green rhetoric is that the trade in marine animals damages the environment, mistreats the individual animals, and perverts our relationship with wild animals (e.g. the anthropomorphization of clownfish a la Nemo).
Why, after all, are there 150-million “pet fish” in the United States compared to 74.8-million pet dogs? Why do more than 600,000 homes in the United States today have a marine aquarium? Why was there a demand in the United States for the importation of in excess of three million marine ornamental fishes between 1997 and 2002? Are all these aquarists budding marine scientists? Will they all become passionate about tropical reef conservation?
Is this why you keep a marine aquarium?
Last week, John Tullock, in his The Aquarium Ecologist blog, said "I am inclined to think the influence of aquarists and aquarium keeping on the preservation of aquatic environments is positive and becoming ever more important." I tend to agree with him. "We have," Tullock writes, "quietly made the aquarium trade greener and greener, before 'Green' was trendy." This is undoubtedly true, not to mention the economic benefit the trade has brought to developing nations throughout the Indo-Pacific (a point that Fossa and Nilsen also make). But if we, as a hobby and an industry, are indeed so much greener, then why do so many from without not see us that way?
Dr. Lorenz postulated almost thirty years ago that “[b]oth the care of marine fish and their scientific observation under natural conditions induce sensitivity and biological intuition in the aquarium owner.” He goes on to say, as quoted by Fossa and Nilsen, “[a]quarium keeping and underwater observation are not ‘hobbies’ in the usual sense, but rather serious occupations which require full participation. Thus they are a ‘school’ of general enjoyment of life whose educational value cannot be treasured enough.”
Is this why you keep a marine aquarium?
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