divers and fish

[David Excoffier]

Hello Prasanna,

>I don't think the reef keepers have a clue what is going on down here, or
>care how much they are contributing to the destruction of the reefs to build
>"pretty little artificial reefs' that they can keep at home. 

Yes they have, why do you think that some of us are connected to this list
?, I'm not here to learn things on how to keep a reef aquarium, I'm only
here because having a reef aquarium has interested me on reef
future/ecology. And when I read here interesting contributions that can
enlight others reef keepers then I translate (in french) and forward to our
distribution list (500 french speaking members having reef aquariums). I'm
not the only one to do that.

>The aquarists should know that every colourful fish that livens their living
>room makes the reefs less and less colourful as the selective predation by
>the trade is leaving the reefs full of only the 'bland' fishes. think of
>what such high intensity selective extraction does to the reef ecology. 

They know that, and that's why some of us are trying to promote initiatives
that are more safe for the reef, grouping their forces in non profit
associations for example.
Nearly all reef keepers are aware of cyanid fishing just because often the
fish dies in their tank, nearly all reef keepers knows exactly the impact
of high water temperature of reef inhabitant because it has exactly the
same effect in their tank, nearly all reef keepers wants to be able to
continue their hobby having the less as possible impact on the reef.
A lot of them are working on this, promoting corals frag exchanges,
promoting labels, promoting compagnies like this one for example :
http://www.aqua-fish.com/ (please visit their web site, you can already
found their fishes in french shops !), some of them are even spending time
and money to try to organize national/international conferencies on that
allowing scientists to speak of that... 

>My apologies if I sound a little hard; but it is hard to sympathize with
>aquarists when you are struggling with the long distance effects of their
>hobbies on a daily basis. 

I really think that the largest part of reef keepers are aware on what's
going on on real reefs, certainly more aware than everyone else except
peoples living there or working on this subject. These reef keepers have
friend, families, etc... and all these peoples are also more or less made
aware of this because of the reefkeepers.

It is perhaps nothing, it'll perhaps be better to stop marine aquarium
industry, I don't know... What I know is that most of the reefkeepers that
I know have never visited a real reefs, and would have never take care of
what is happening on your reef without having a reef tank. This has a
price, perhaps it is too expensive for the reef, it's up to you to let us
know.

When European Community has banned some LPS species coming from Indonesia,
who has been aware of that ?, reefkeepers, who has asked why there was this
ban ?, reefkeepers, who, perhaps because of this ban, has discovered that
reefs where disappearing for severals reason (global warm, aquarist hobby,
bomb fishing, etc...) ?, reefkeepers. You cannot say that they are not
aware...

The first time that I've seen on French TV a major advertise (prime time,
something like 9 millions of french people watching TV, severals time on
the week) on human impact on the reef was a few weeks ago with a campaign
of a french national environnement agency telling something like "do you
know that when you use your car you are killing reefs....". Except this
uncommon example, all that I have learned on this was here and meeting
other reefkeepers , and I came here because I'm a reef keeper. 

Otherwise I wouldn't have take care of reefs and only take care of global
warm that reduce the size of the glaciers that I can see from my home windows.

Very sorry for disturbing this list with my simple reefkeeper comments.

Regards,

David
--
Membre de l'ARA (http://www.aquarium-recifal.com )
Co-nettoyeur d'Aquamer.

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