Sourcing Marine Fishes and Invertebrates

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Jay Hemdal

Jay Hemdal

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I have not heard of MAC. Will have to look into it.

Also I understand the hesitation from the legal side to create a good vs bad vendor list. I guess I was thinking something that would be voluntary through a 3rd party that would provide a certification. Similar to ISO certification for environmental. Vendors that are certified would have to have certain practices in place and be willing to participate in annual audits to ensure compliance.

This would give us the ability to chose with confidence vendors we know are using sustainable practices.

Yes, MAC was essentially an ISO certification system using third party inspectors. The trouble was, the supply chain is VERY long and convoluted: a fisher catches the fish and holds them for up to a week until a travelling boat/truck comes by to make a pickup. The fish then go to an intermediary for shipment to the exporter. The fish are then exported to the US and then either go to a retail store directly, or to a secondary wholesaler and then a retail store.

Jay
 

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When I worked at an LFS the shop owner was a native SriLanakan and would take annual trips to SriLanka and Indonesia to inspect the vendors we ordered from. He was very adamant that everything be collected legally and ethically. We wanted good fish and no trouble. I learned multiple things about collecting and sourcing fish from him.

  1. Fish don't often come from where you would think. We would get beautiful Pakistani Butterfly fish the size of my hand. He showed me the collection site was underneath a walking bridge in a SriLankan City the water was completely brown from sediment and far from a pristine reef.
  2. Bad collection practices are common and hard to enforce. Many companies subcontract collection to single individuals they pay per fish at the end of the day and the company owners have no idea how the fish were collected. Even if the employer tells divers not to use cyanide or not to collect from certain areas there is no way for them to know where the fish come from that they are brought.
  3. The best wild collectors are highly sustainable and prove the sustainable wild collection is possible. My former employer reported that he collected cleaner ship from a particular site as a young man and that this site was still being collected from 30 years later with no noticeable change in shrimp density. Educated collectors who are not in poverty tend to be far more sustainable and focus on finding more collection sites and periodically harvesting from them as a long-term business. Poor people struggling to feed their families will do anything to get a couple of bucks a fish. This is why it is a true shame that collection has been restricted in many developed areas.
  4. Government corruption in this part of the world is real. It is very common for collection permits only to be issued if money is passed under the table, and fines are often issued from corrupt officials even if no violation actually occurred.
 

ArachnoJoozt

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Excellent information, didn't know most of it. Although checking where fish come from will still be quite difficult.
Only 1 possible problem comes to mind when reading this information: say you're a (new) collector in one of the 'less sustainable' countries, but are trying to be as sustainable as possible. You would have to fight quite a stigma, and it would be harder setting up a good sustainable business in one of those countries as opposed to one of the 'very sustainable' countries.
 

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As someone that cares about my pet fish and wants to do better, thank you. One problem I'm having as a hobbiest is every LFS I have asked here in Houston about the source for both fish and coral the answer is always Indonesia. Also I have not had a great experience buying online.
 
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As someone that cares about my pet fish and wants to do better, thank you. One problem I'm having as a hobbiest is every LFS I have asked here in Houston about the source for both fish and coral the answer is always Indonesia. Also I have not had a great experience buying online.

One trick I've used is to buy fish that are not found in the area that I want to avoid. However, with the closing down of Hawaii, that has gotten more difficult to do. Red Sea fish, fish from the Caribbean, etc. are still options.

Jay
 
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Just an FYI - I updated the text and added a couple of countries......

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Jay,

Great write up and actually a really good topic! On the Philippines, It seems like their major exporter Barnet Shuman has done a really good job cleaning up the export business over there. He used to post alot of videos on their net training, holding facilities, facility build out etc. It was really a pleasure to watch his success over there and open up substation etc. S. Giganteas have been coming in more from there it seems and healthier! just my two cents... However they also have been bringing in some new species it seems as well.. Now I dont really know as a whole country how many exporters there are, but he seems to be the big wig now ?
 
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And a video with more background:



J


Thanks for the interesting article and video. It is so sad cyanide is still used today. I also totally agree with guy in the video, that it is a shame we as hobbyists have such a hard time finding out who the collector is, where exactly the fish came from etc.
 
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Thanks for the interesting article and video. It is so sad cyanide is still used today. I also totally agree with guy in the video, that it is a shame we as hobbyists have such a hard time finding out who the collector is, where exactly the fish came from etc.

Yes - a clear supply chain would help. Sometimes, you can deduce a fish's origin - tank raised fish obviously haven't been caught with cyanide. Fish not found in Indonesia or the Philippines (like Caribbean species) are also a good bet. Then, it becomes a matter of asking your LFS where the fish came from. Some stores may not tell the truth, and other LFS have been lied to by their suppliers, so that is an issue. Finally, not every fish from SE Asia have been caught with cyanide, and about 50% of those that have been will survive.

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Yes - a clear supply chain would help. Sometimes, you can deduce a fish's origin - tank raised fish obviously haven't been caught with cyanide. Fish not found in Indonesia or the Philippines (like Caribbean species) are also a good bet. Then, it becomes a matter of asking your LFS where the fish came from. Some stores may not tell the truth, and other LFS have been lied to by their suppliers, so that is an issue. Finally, not every fish from SE Asia have been caught with cyanide, and about 50% of those that have been will survive.

Jay
Absolutely! I have 3 LFS by me I go to. I know the owners and employees well. If they know they will tell you, and they try their best not to buy from known areas that use poor collecton practices.
 
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This paints a different picture------------

Yes - Barnett is doing very well with RVS Fish World, but that is just one company. I do hope he has long term success in PNG. However, there are still a lot of grade B fish coming out of Manila from other exporters.

Also, I should point out that the person on the far right is Steve Robinson. He was one of my heroes in the 1980's when he wrote about the damage caused by cyanide fishing. However, later on he was convicted of smuggling Clipperton angelfish, so sad.

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I have a related question maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley or another chemistry-minded member can answer about cyanide use in fishing...I'm doing a report for one of my university classes (Environmental Toxicology) and chose to do my report on NaCN which ive commonly heard to be the form of cyanide used in cyanide fishing. However, I can't find information on how it occurs as a liquid at room temperature (it always appears as a solid and breaks down into HCN and hydroxide when added to water). Is the form of cyanide in the bottle they quirt it from actually HCN and they just refer to it as NaCN because that's what they used to make the solution or is the NaCN somehow converted into a liquid and able to remain NaCN as an aqueous solution? Any formulas or structures you could provide would be very helpful! Thanks!
 
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I have a related question maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley or another chemistry-minded member can answer about cyanide use in fishing...I'm doing a report for one of my university classes (Environmental Toxicology) and chose to do my report on NaCN which ive commonly heard to be the form of cyanide used in cyanide fishing. However, I can't find information on how it occurs as a liquid at room temperature (it always appears as a solid and breaks down into HCN and hydroxide when added to water). Is the form of cyanide in the bottle they quirt it from actually HCN and they just refer to it as NaCN because that's what they used to make the solution or is the NaCN somehow converted into a liquid and able to remain NaCN as an aqueous solution? Any formulas or structures you could provide would be very helpful! Thanks!

My understanding is that cyanide salts dissociate completely in water. For this use, KCN is also sometimes used. It is apparently available as a fumigation material, in tablets. The divers break the tablets up and put them in squirt bottles. This creates an incredibly variable dose - the first few squirts are really strong, then after time, the solution becomes more dilute. Towards the end of the cycle,. it apparently works more as a irritant, driving the fish out of the coral. These are likely the fish that survive in aquariums.

Jay
 
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livinlifeinBKK

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My understanding is that cyanide salts dissociated completely in water. For this use, KCN is also sometimes used. It is apparently available as a fumigation material, in tablets. The divers break the tablets up and put them in squirt bottles. This creates an incredibly variable dose - the first few squirts are really strong, then after time, the solution becomes more dilute. Towards the end of the cycle,. it apparently works more as a irritant, driving the fish out of the coral. These are likely the fish that survive in aquariums.

Jay
That's what I've found online as well...cyanide available as KCN and NaCN actually have a number of industrial uses and are actually available for purchase to the public here in Asia (if I wanted I could actually buy it from a popular retail site like Amazon no questions asked)...I've also found through my research that fish are ~1000 times more sensitive to cyanide that humans... unfortunately here I don't have much choice in who I buy fish from due to the limited number of shops and their honesty (or actual knowledge) is limited...I know some shops get a majority of their stock from the Philippines and Indonesia and I assume the others do as well due to the close proximity of these countries to me. I do think I've gotten at least one fish caught with cyanide (a Bennetti Butterfly that only made it 2 days sadly). It's truly sad that they've resorted to this practice and maintain it to this day. Interestingly, I actually know a guy who works in the industry and he invited me to come to Bali and said I could see their collection process but unfortunately I couldn't go this past summer.
 
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