reeffirstaid
Active Member
I have a different view of garage and basement wholesalers. I see two problems with it. First, it's well known that accountability and data acquisition on the hobbies' effect on the ocean are troublesome. There is a data black hole about how many people have marine/reef aquariums, what's in them, where it came from, any information needed to make a careful analysis that could be crunched into law. We saw the effect of this with NOAA and the NMFS report and proposed ban of species which will be listed as threatened under the ESA. We still don't know what legislation will arise, but I would assume it will be something. They didn't have enough data, they were presented with data and a list of 62 proposed species dropped to somewhere around 22. If we're going to monitor animals from the time they are collected forward, in an effort to get the data needed to make working regulations, it's going to be tough if at the wholesaler, livestock is sold to many different channels, online outlets, retail stores and a host of garage vendors. If garage vendors aren't carrying licenses, then we can't be assured they are abiding by any applicable regulations. A garage seller could be selling prohibited Caribbean elkhorn coral and it would be hard to tell, since their facility doesn't require inspection or certification of any kind.
I know everyone hates regulations, but they are there for a reason. Without them, when problems arise, such as we saw with NOAA, blanket bans are supported because data doesn't exist to show the real impact. There are so many basement vendors right now, you could never count them all. What rules do they play by? What laws of commerce and animal acquisition and care do they follow? It's anyone's guess. This has led to common corals being tagged with flashy names and sold for 20X+ their real market value. Without something in place to keep everyone on the same playing field, following the same rules and tracking information as it moves through, we don't have a sustainable industry.
I'll take Steve Robinson for example, a collector. Even under the circumstances of being a known collector, he attempted to smuggle in Clipperton angels which are protected. To do so, he told authorities they were a blue morph of passer angels. Now that the ESA is being used as a tool in protecting species effected by climate change, it's certain that it will have an effect on commerce regarding living animals for exotic regions. If garage sellers are too exist, they need to be playing by the same rules as everyone else. If wholesalers who aren't supposed to supply garage sellers with animals are doing so, there needs to be repercussions.
I know everyone hates regulations, but they are there for a reason. Without them, when problems arise, such as we saw with NOAA, blanket bans are supported because data doesn't exist to show the real impact. There are so many basement vendors right now, you could never count them all. What rules do they play by? What laws of commerce and animal acquisition and care do they follow? It's anyone's guess. This has led to common corals being tagged with flashy names and sold for 20X+ their real market value. Without something in place to keep everyone on the same playing field, following the same rules and tracking information as it moves through, we don't have a sustainable industry.
I'll take Steve Robinson for example, a collector. Even under the circumstances of being a known collector, he attempted to smuggle in Clipperton angels which are protected. To do so, he told authorities they were a blue morph of passer angels. Now that the ESA is being used as a tool in protecting species effected by climate change, it's certain that it will have an effect on commerce regarding living animals for exotic regions. If garage sellers are too exist, they need to be playing by the same rules as everyone else. If wholesalers who aren't supposed to supply garage sellers with animals are doing so, there needs to be repercussions.
