Captive Aquatics: An Aquarium and Ecology Blog

Earthquake in Indonesia, Flooding in the Philippines

For those of you that don't know, Padang, Indonesia was hit with an earthquake measuring at 7.6 on the Richter Scale on the 14th.  The earthquake caused widespread damage to a country that supplies our hobby with a large percentage of our fish & coral. 

As a firefighter in Galveston who volunteered during the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and other disasters, I feel for the people of Indonesia, and for the people working tirelessly to provide relief.  As I've had first hand experience with disaster relief charities (and scams), I recommend not donating to the Red Cross, and instead donating to SurfAid for those interested in helping via donation.  Below is a video provided by SurfAid regarding the disaster area:

As if that weren't enough, recent heavy flooding in the Philippines (our largest supplier of animals for the saltwater trade) was heavily flooded four days ago, putting most of the capital, Manila, under water.  More information is in the video below, or via BBC News. 

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Captive Bred Triggerfish!

Andy Rhyne, assistant biology professor at the Roger Williams University in Rhode Island used eggs collected from Queen Triggers at the New England Aquarium in Boston, and copepod cultures from Erik Stenn to succesfully rear four Queen Triggerfish to sub-adulthood, and all four are now feeding on dry food.

This is excellent news for those active in ornamental aquatics aquaculture, and their techniques could someday provide a home-grown source of triggerfish to the hobby!  Although there are two sides to the aquaculture coin (the benefit of wild caught fish provide a source of income for native peoples and sometimes an incentive to protect native reef habitats) rising fuel prices and increased legislation may put pressures on our hobby that aquaculture could help mitigate.

Image credit: D.L. Ryan 

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Fishing Regulations Enforced!

 From Fox News:

"SANTA BARBARA - Three fisherman are paying a $10,000 penalty rather than fight state and federal allegations they fished in the protected Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.  Investigators say Shane and Jason Robinson of Santa Barbara and Joseph Campopiano of Morro Bay, fished south of Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands during a two week period in March 2008.

State and federal officials say it's within the sanctuary's no fish zone."

That marine sanctuary laws are being enforced, especially those in poorer countries, is great news!

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Ocean-friendly seafood

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has put together a pocket sized seafood eating guide called the Seafood Watch, which contains a list of seafood that are ecologically friendly, as well as those that aren't - view the guide here.  Help prevent the needless deaths of millions of fish from by-catch by avoiding wasteful and ecologically damaging seafood such as imported shrimp!

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Poaching in the Aquarium Trade

The two dead leopard sharks to the left were found in a trashcan in Norwalk, CT with their bellies slit, most likely so that poacher(s) could remove the still-living eggs for illegal sale to aquarists.  The full news story can be found here. 

The average home aquarist has no business attempting to keep a shark, much less a species that's illegal to own without a permit, and grows to an excess of six feet!  Not only are these animals doomed from the beginning when purchased illegally by an aquarist, and not only does purchasing a leopard shark baby fund this abhorrent practice, but these illegal actions causeslawmakers to (rightfully so) draft new legislature, further restricting our hobby. 

As you are probably aware, a bill (HR 669) was recently drafted, and should it have passed, would have completely ended the pet industry as we know it in America.  While HR 669 was a drastic and illogical piece of legislation, incidents like shark poaching remind us all that increased legal pressure is a good thing, at least as far as the welfare of the animals involved are concerned. 

I think we can all agree that purchasing animals illegally on the black market is a bad thing, especially animals wholly unsuited to captivity as a rule.  What other fish or invertebrate sdo you feel should be illegal to own that aren't?  Feel free to be heard by commenting!

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Giant Jellies!

Giant Nomura's jellyfish under observation by biologists at Hiroshima University, off the coast of Japan.  These giant jellyfish invade the coastal waters of Japan every few years, although very little is known about them, or about their reproductive cycle.

 

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Photo of the Week 6/15

 

Gotcha! Marine Biologist Darrin Dukes displays his latest catch: a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle.  Darrin is participating in the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, tagging and monitoring sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.  Learn more about this fascinating and important project at www.seaturtles.org.

 

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Adopt a CritterCam Critter!

National Geographic is now offering the ability to adopt a CritterCam animal!  For those who don't know, the CritterCam is an awesome invention that literally straps a video camera to an animal, often a sea animal, to record previously unknown information about its daily life.  Read about the CritterCam here!

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Photo of the Week 6/09

Man vs Wild: marine biologist and Captive Aquatics blog contributing author Cara Valinoti observing bottlenose dolphins at an under-construction marine mammal behavior facility while on a research trip in Central America. 

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Should Anemones Be Illegal to Import for our Hobby?

P. yucatanicus engaged in a commensal relationship with C. gigantae on the Drowned Cayes, Belize.  Mike Maddox

How do you think the public would react if they were told that cats and dogs, rather than being bred, were taken from the wild (and often injured in the process) before being placed in an oft-inappropriate home?  How about if the public were told that 90% of the cats and dogs they bought would die in the first year?  Do you suppose it would still be legal to own them? 

While this scenario is just an example, anemones in the home aquarium have a dismal survival rate ("more than 90% die within a year " - WetWebMedia)!