I don’t think regulation and restrictions are always automatically bad. Letting everyone do whatever they want without restriction might sound good on paper, that is until you lose your house after getting screwed over by a bank or have a corporation dump millions of gallons of toxic waste in your backyard *cough* Piney Point *cough cough*.
And whether you agree with it or not, one of the silver linings out of the Hawaii ban is that there are now more aquacultured Yellow Tangs available now then there would’ve been otherwise.
I doubt that species would be available in the numbers it is now, in a sustainable (or profitable) way, without the supply of relatively cheap wild-caught specimens being cut off.
I believe the Hawaiian ban and the resulting rise of the aquacultured Yellow Tang is a good example of where this hobby is headed in general when it comes to wild-caught livestock. If I were a betting man, I’d say a ban on Australian ornamental exports would be the next big domino to fall.
Rising prices suck, and no one wants to pay them. But as painful as it may be to pay $100 for a fish that used to cost $30, the flip side is maybe it’ll make the prospective hobbyist more careful as it’s a larger investment.
***This in no way is meant to imply that the amount of money you have has any bearing whatsoever in your reefkeeping skills. Just that higher cost might give pause to ppl that aren‘t serious about the hobby, lowering mortality overall.***
I’m not for knee-jerk, over the top reactions, but common-sense restrictions seem reasonable to me in the long term. Who knows, maybe one day scientists will turn to us hobbyists for help in coral propagation once the reefs have all but disappeared in the wild… we could be doing science y’all!
And whether you agree with it or not, one of the silver linings out of the Hawaii ban is that there are now more aquacultured Yellow Tangs available now then there would’ve been otherwise.
I doubt that species would be available in the numbers it is now, in a sustainable (or profitable) way, without the supply of relatively cheap wild-caught specimens being cut off.
I believe the Hawaiian ban and the resulting rise of the aquacultured Yellow Tang is a good example of where this hobby is headed in general when it comes to wild-caught livestock. If I were a betting man, I’d say a ban on Australian ornamental exports would be the next big domino to fall.
Rising prices suck, and no one wants to pay them. But as painful as it may be to pay $100 for a fish that used to cost $30, the flip side is maybe it’ll make the prospective hobbyist more careful as it’s a larger investment.
***This in no way is meant to imply that the amount of money you have has any bearing whatsoever in your reefkeeping skills. Just that higher cost might give pause to ppl that aren‘t serious about the hobby, lowering mortality overall.***
I’m not for knee-jerk, over the top reactions, but common-sense restrictions seem reasonable to me in the long term. Who knows, maybe one day scientists will turn to us hobbyists for help in coral propagation once the reefs have all but disappeared in the wild… we could be doing science y’all!
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