NY Times article on salt tanks and invertebrates

I read that they other day.

I read on Bornemans forum that he hates talking to reporters for that reason. He said he gave them a 45 minute interview & they took that one line out of context

 

Interesting Article...i always consider reef hpbbyists as aquatic conservationists, not people that put and increase on the demand of an individual species.

 

"There are an estimated 700,000 saltwater home aquariums"
Even though that number really doesn't surprise me.   I don't know if it's world wide or just in the US, but I'm going to guess just in the US.
Out of those 700,000, how many of those owners do you think are in their area clubs and attend swaps?  What percentage would you think care about over collecting or even killed a few beginner type species first starting out.
A good analogy would be hunters.    There are hunters in my area who pay attention to the laws and only take their limit.   Our pheasant population is way down because foxes are over populating and eating their eggs.    So you have hunters who are aware of their impact of hunting and not hunting certain species.     Then again, you have those hick boys that'll shot anything that moves for fun.
Some people in our hobby are aware of what's going on with collecting and try not add any more stress buy buying wild caught species, while others, just don't give a damn.

 

I've never bought wild caught fish before, not really because of conservation (which is a good reason) but I always thought it sounded so mean to take a beautiful fish from the wild and force it into a little glass aquarium. I agree with Reefer though on the newbies not knowing better, but then again, I never knew corals could be wild caught until I came here. So maybe that's just another awareness thing.