Can you bring home Zoas from Hawaii?

NowGlazeIT

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It's TABOO to take things from Hawaii..A legend, referred to as Pele's Curse, says that visitors who take rocks or sand away from Hawaii will suffer bad luck until the native Hawaiian elements are returned.
Keywords here Sand and rock
 

MONTANTK

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Knew of a guy that tried the “zoas on a shell” trick with a protected species when he would import and he ended up getting jail time and a HEFTY fine
 

zoa1

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the crazy thing about Hawaii is there s no corals in tide pools etc, you have to go farther out because most of the coastline is polluted. you only see some fish like damsels, and alot of dead stuff and algae. and yes its illegal to remove stuff from the ocean and the locals will probably keep you a good beating if they catch you doing that good luck
It infuriates me that there is such misinformation being kept in forums in case people search these things looking for answers. This is so untrue.
1) I’ve seen tons of stony coral all the time in shallow water. It may not be the Great Barrier Reef but there’s still a lot of coral.
2) Tons of fun things in tide pools from inverts, eels, sea urchins, to sand anemones. Tons of different fish while just snorkeling also. Most of the things are either hard to identify if they would be reef safe (inverts) or types of fish that are generally cheap in stores (convict tangs, triggers) or grow too big for most aquariums (puffers).
3) You are allowed to collect in the ocean as long as you abide by the regulations of areas allowed to fish, size, number collected in a day, and gear used to collect. Personal collection is legal. Only stony corals, live rock, and sand is illegal to collect or collection of any livestock for resale. You don’t even need a permit or be a resident. Only a permit to fish in fresh water in Hawaii. Also allowed to leave the state with livestock as long as it is for PERSONAL aquarium. Biggest hurdle would be for TSA to understand what they are looking at. Whether or not you would want to jump through the hoops of keeping it alive and the ultimate decision being of if that particular TSA agent is having a good or bad day would be up to you.
4) Locals are not going to beat you up and it’s an ignorant thing to say. I’m so sick of this talking point. The biggest group of people against collection in Hawaii are lobbyist groups that want to end the industry and donate to the university and politicians, not the locals.
 
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Cantusaurus

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It infuriates me that there is such misinformation being kept in forums in case people search these things looking for answers. This is so untrue.
1) I’ve seen tons of stony coral all the time in shallow water. It may not be the Great Barrier Reef but there’s still a lot of coral.
2) Tons of fun things in tide pools from inverts, eels, sea urchins, to sand anemones. Tons of different fish while just snorkeling also. Most of the things are either hard to identify if they would be reef safe (inverts) or types of fish that are generally cheap in stores (convict tangs, triggers) or grow too big for most aquariums (puffers).
3) You are allowed to collect in the ocean as long as you abide by the regulations of areas allowed to fish, size, number collected in a day, and gear used to collect. Personal collection is legal. Only stony corals, live rock, and sand is illegal to collect or collection of any livestock for resale. You don’t even need a permit or be a resident. Only a permit to fish in fresh water in Hawaii. Also allowed to leave the state with livestock as long as it is for PERSONAL aquarium. Biggest hurdle would be for TSA to understand what they are looking at. Whether or not you would want to jump through the hoops of keeping it alive and the ultimate decision being of if that particular TSA agent is having a good or bad day would be up to you.
4) Locals are not going to beat you up and it’s an ignorant thing to say. I’m so sick of this talking point. The biggest group of people against collection in Hawaii are lobbyist groups that want to end the industry and donate to the university and politicians, not the locals.
I agree with this. My favorite snorkeling spot on the big island is very shallow and has tons of stony corals. and yeah I am ok with people collecting livestock as long as it’s sustainably done, but I do hate when things like starfish (reef safe ones that aren’t serpent stars), flame scallops, and certain fish are collected that 97 percent of people won’t be able to keep or don’t have time to keep up with their demands. But yeah it is totally legal to collect in Hawaii. BUT, I just found out before I went again recently that the West Side of the Big Island is a zone where collection is not allowed without a permit, but they aren’t issuing permits so…. Yeah. That’s great. But every other place in Hawaii is fine. I went to the big island and still collected some Zoas, but I just used little 3-4 ounce coral containers and just kept them in my bag through TSA (nothing happened).
I technically shouldn’t have done it, but it’s dumb people are allowed to fish and risk damaging coral doing that, as well as so many people being allowed to snorkel and stepping on the reef. So its not a big deal since my actions are much less damaging.
You can also legally ship the livestock back home if it is recreationally done.
I don’t trust the big island of Hawaii (Kona) TSA. It’s much stricter there regulation wise and even if things change and you are able to get a permit they just don’t know all the info and I can’t completely blame them. If they see us taking things they will assume it is not allowed.
 
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