fyi- Coral Aquaculture could become illegal.

That seem absurd that we wouldn't be able to aquaculture the corals we have already. I mean if there endangered then wouldn't they want more of it to be grown? What will they do cruse the forums and bust us for selling frags? I realy doubt it. Most likely it will only stop harvesting new colonys and if they truely are endangered then i'm all for it.

 

its tru only main change will be prices, besides keeping people outta the ocean was the best thing ever, if i would have to give up all my fish just so people would let the ocean grow and flourish i will.

 

Isn't there anyway they can post these as endangered species and still let us keep fragging the corals we already have? Just make sure nobody collects anymore from the ocean and we can help increase the coral populations in our home aquariums.

 

This has been going around for months now, I think this is the third time I have seen it on GIRS alone.

There is almost no chance this will pass. It is a poorly written piece that showed up in coral magazine

Here is a quote from Borneman on it.

"The ban on propagation is and always has been a part of the ESA and is necessary for effective enforcement. Unless you have permits and a paper trail to prove the origins of the animals there is no way for NMFS to distinguish between a coral someone grew in their greenhouse and one that was imported illegally.

Their main source of info on the issue is describing a scenario that is beyond the worst-case. In no conceivable way will this shut down the hobby. Only about half of the species on the petition are even in the trade, and most of those aren't common. Each species is considered separately and the burden of proof is pretty high, so it's unlikely that very many of the species will even be listed, especially given that most have not been well-studied. I would be surprised to see more than 10 or 15 deemed worthy of listing. Of those that are deemed candidates for listing, it usually takes 15-20 years to proceed from a candidate for listing (with no legal protection) to a listed species, which is when the protection takes effect.

In a worst-case scenario, about 40 of the 150 stony coral species in the hobby are banned, effective in about 2 years. Even in that case the ban would be difficult to enforce due to the inability to properly identify corals. You're likely to see it reflected more in the names on shipping lists rather than in the corals actually coming in.

In the most-likely scenario, we lose 4 or 5 species, effective 15-20 years from now. "

 

The problem here (when speaking specifically about law) is that there is really no way to prove you owned the coral to begin with before the ban. Perhaps they can impose needing permits for certain corals, but then again many people would be just as upset by that. While I do think this sucks for the hobby, I would personally rather the hobby suffered than reefs keep getting depleted. The other side of the coin too, is that compared to other human activity, collection is probably the least of our concerns in terms of keeping these species flourishing in the wilds.

Whether this passes now or not, we can be sure that similar topics will be sprouting up more and more in the future. I doubt this hobby will be anything like it is now in the next twenty or so years in terms of grabbing a bunch of wild creatures and tossing them in glass boxes for our amusement.

 

Very few (probably more like none) of the creatures we keep in our tanks would ever end up making it back to a wild reef.

 

Posted By Bela on 04/09/2010 02:55 PM

Posted By FishBrain on 04/09/2010 12:19 AM
That seem absurd that we wouldn't be able to aquaculture the corals we have already. I mean if there endangered then wouldn't they want more of it to be grown? What will they do cruse the forums and bust us for selling frags? I realy doubt it. Most likely it will only stop harvesting new colonys and if they truely are endangered then i'm all for it.
Very few (probably more like none) of the creatures we keep in our tanks would ever end up making it back to a wild reef.
That's not what I was saying I was saying that if the species of coral in question where thriveing in a hobby reef then it wouldn't be extenct would it.

 

In nature, they still would and frankly that is all that truly matters, is it not? But again, the entire topic boils down to how does one prove that the coral they have in their collection that is extinct in the wild wasn't actually pulled from the wild in the first place? And no, we wouldn't be busted on forums. I am sure you do illegal things daily and are not busted by your actions. I know I do (technically listening to a song on YouTube is illegal if it wasn't uploaded by the user.) A law like this would mostly just stop the open sale and trade of these organisms. If you happen to tell the FBI you have all these things growing in your basement, well, you will probably get busted then too LOL.