Aquarium Bill

[barrierreefcf]

Started doing some research....

http://www.hawaiiaudubon.com/newsletter/el0504.pdf
http://www.unep.org/PDF/From_Ocean_T...ium_report.pdf
http://www.ctsa.org/ProjectList2.asp...w+Technologies
http://www.lib.noaa.gov/docaqua/ptofpsummary2001.htm
http://www.hawaiianbeachrentals.com/...ticle.php?id=3
http://www.spc.int/coastfish/news/LR...F12-Rezal1.pdf
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/tis...0IE 2005.pdf


Ok...I'm burnt out...that should keep ya'll busy for a while. After reading all that I've learned two things.
1. Limits definately need to be set but what they are is beyond me. I'd still like more specific verbage in the bill.
2. In 2004 the voluntary self-reporting indicates that exports were $1 million and change. Unless we are talking about a hefty tax...my idea for a tax funding aquaculture and preserve policing is shot. Could be a lot of non-reporting though??
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[burning2nd]

this problem is bigger then just hawaii.... All reefs should be protected...

also there should be more reef farming.. inside of nautral harvesting.


i think its good if a 25buck fish cost 100 bucks then.... at least that way the noobs wont be able to aford em.

 

[WPH]

I totally agree with you....just a breif history to everyone who doesnt quite understand how this bill was introduced. a large number of hobbyist assumes that the reefs are being overfished....out of all the islands on the Hawaiian chain. only three Islands have active commercial divers.....(only three) Kona is already heavily regulated and and most of the island is closed off as a sanctury kona will distribute fish to Oahu for world distribution. Divers in Kona already know that you catch the small to med yellow tangs...not the large breeders they are being left there to repopulate the oceanBECAUSE MOST AQUARIUM FISH CANNOT BE BRED IN CAPTIVITY.(that is why you see almost all small and med yellow tangs) The next Island would be oahu where all of your marine fish wholesalers are located,and then Maui...(there is only one commercial diver actively collecting on Maui) JUST ONE!!! so we need to go back and take a look at how this bill was put into effect.....your answer in bold letter

(snorkel tour companies got together to try and stop commercial divers from collectin on reefs) not scientist with their facts of sudy....tour companies
.... you have way way way more fish being collected from commercial fisherman then all the commercial divers combined. There is no regulations on them on the amount limit they can catch....none why do they not have regulations....because they bring in way more taxable money then aquarium fish divers why would the not put a limit on the amount of fish a fisherman can catch and sell to the fish market...studies do show that there is a decline in seafood production.....why ban a small reef fish and not a fish for food....because food fish s not as pretty of a fish as reef fish and people have more of a heart to protect a fish that looks better?why isnt there a ban on the amount of tuna fish we consume....you see by targeting the aquarium fish industry it will only benefit the tour boats who take tourist out to snorkel. I do agree thet we need to be aware of what we catch but I feel that this bill is going about it wrong....the limit is way to small and a lot of the fish species being targeted are not near close to extinction....instead a size limit for aquarium fish should be enforced so that the breeders are left to repopulate the ocean. I wonder who will enforce this bill because DLNR can't handle more work load and who is going to pay for more enforcemant staff to be hired to regulate this....what will come about if this bill is passed is that most to all wholesalers of tropical marine fish will fold...becaus if a diver has a very very small catch limit they will resort to retailing their fish straight to the consumer rather than wholesaling their catches to the public.so all your mainland wholesalers as well will not be able to get very much hawaiian fish and then the pet stores will not have hawaiian fish stocked up and stores will suffer revenue losses due to the diver being forced to market their own catches to the distributors. think about it....thats my opinion..and I oppose this bill but I do agree that divers should be more concerned over what and how much they catch regardless a ...everyone has an opinion and this is how I feel.....Aloha

What we really need is information on the studies that have led to this proposed bill. The proposed "no-take" categories seem very vauge and the bill leaves a lot of room for them to work with as far as restrictions. It also seems extreme to propose these "no-take" categories. It would be one thing if the fish populations were threatened to dangerous levels but I have not seen any reports of this. Are they? Why not expand the marine sanctuaries in order to increase populations and protect species. In fact...didn't Bush or Clinton just recently do this? Doesn't Hawaii now have one of the largest marine preserves in the world? If its hard/expensive to police marine preserves then tax marine ornamental exporters, who will pass the tax on. We all seem in agreement that higher prices are ok as long as the reefs are protected. It doesn't necessarily mean we have give the government vaugely defined power to legislate which fish can be caught for the trade. I think the public deserves a lot more information before we should support this bill one way or the other. Unfortunately we don't get the opportunity to arrive at fully informed positions and therefore my personal opinion is that this bill gives too much power to the government.

 

[WPH]

actually Oahu has about 12 wholesale companies and about 50 commercial divers......and Kona has about 6 yellow tang distributors and about 30 commercial divers.....no distributors on the other islands only one active commercial diver on Maui......FYI

I wanna know how many collection companies are in Hawaii, 20 years ago i could probably count them on my hand. As for now i feel like there is about 200 . Someone should list all collectors and then we might realize why they want to regulate.

 

[WPH]

I not saying stop all forien exports.....if you are in the export business you will see that a very large percentage of fish go to forien markets....there should be a limit to what gets traded overseas thus easing on the demand for Hawaiian fish...followed by less harvesting of the ocean.....thats all Im saying....not ban forien sales....just limit....or put a higher tax on exports....to fund programs geared toward preservation.....

Then who's collecting the fish?


We get all the fish because Hawaii is in US? That's one seriously ugly and slippery slope to step into! Then Indonesia and Australia say "No fish for US." And the Caribbean nations say "No fish for US." Before you know it, the yellow tang is the ONLY fish we can get a hold of. This is a world market, not a national one.


I'm sorry, but this would be completely inappropriate. I'm irritated enough that my tax dollars subsidize a necessity like FOOD. For my tax dollars to subsidize a relatively high end luxury hobby... I'd be infuriated. If the hobby can't sustain itself, it doesn't deserve to exist. What's next? Subsidize/fund car stereos? Skateboards for all the kids? I know I've always wanted an R/C airplane.

 

[Scooterman]

I merged these two threads, we don't need to duplicate the subject but we will have a few duplicated post, I should of merged them sooner apologies.

I see some good points, one is we can't reproduce some fish in captivity, well one time we couldn't even keep them alive so we should still get help maybe in trying to be successful in doing so. I also agree commercial fishing is whack & people believe we'll never run out of fish in the ocean, that is a whole other topic but it is related to this subject. The important thing I see is awareness, If we can at least have consideration of what is happing then we can address the problems & maybe not add to the destruction as people tend to do with natural resources.
Anyways, back to the subject, lets keep the peace & agree or agree to disagree peacefully.

 

[reefsupply]

Tax the exported fish, by doing this you may slow down the export and also you may make up some of the funding required for this bill to work.
Some kind of restrictions need to be but in place but the bill in the form it is now in my opinion is a joke. If you buy from certified collectors who are doing there job properly there may be little or no impact.
Lastly if I try to sell a yellow tang in the store for lets say $100 I'll have it for months and the average customer will basically say I'll give you X for it, I'm in business if I wanted a negative profit I would be a mortgage broker.
I’ve been around for a long time and I have seen what the so called restrictions have done. Let the industry police it’s self make all of the collection companies get certified. We can do this by buying from only Certified Collectors. The State should have the final say, the guys in Washington all want to be your big brother. Next they’ll say do you have a licenses tag on your fish in your aquarium or do you have a Dept. of Ag. Certificate to have those fish (inside joke) wait that’s it we can sell Aquarium Licenses just like Hunting Licenses. LOL

 

[Red C Aquarium]

Thanks Wet Pet, I was over shooting it saying 200.Where can we find a list of all of them, in the phone book ?

 

[burning2nd]

ROFl

i spit my beer on my self when i red that part about "only one diver"

ya one diver gatherd all the fish we all have.... lol



this is beat

 

[WPH]

LOL...yeah......only one diver on the island of Maui (only) and he sells directly to his LFS not supply wholesalers on Oahu....Kona and Oahu is where you get all your fish none of the other islands supply you folks.....


Oh and ARedSeaAquarium......I think your ordering from a supplier on Oahu....it's a good friend of mine your ordering from..Jeff@PP...(is that correct?)I was at his warehouse the day he was packing your fish...so if Im not mistaken on this it would be best to stick with one supplier.If Im wrong...I apologize!!!...Hawaii is a small community and this business is so cut throat I don't really get myself to into their circle....thats why I like to stick to online retail. because none of them do retail...just wholesale only.

 

[NC2WA]

WPH,

thats why I like to stick to online retail. because none of them do retail...just wholesale only.

I assume this bill will still affect you directly even though your business is online vs wholesale ??

 

[WPH]

yes it will......but not as dramatic as the wholesale only companies because I gan go out and get my own fish to directly retail....larger wholesalers rely on the divers to get their stuff for them.....my business deals in small quantities and my overhead is next to nothing so the only thing that will affect me on this bill is if the ban certain species....

 

[WPH]

I'm sorry ARedSeaAquarium I don't know where I was getting that assumption from.....I will be happy to give you a couple of names of good suppliers in Hawaii (PM me).....Aloha