Everyone take a look

i now leave the resposnibility up to the lfs to teach that person the rights and wrongs of sw keeping.

Click to expand...

And therein lies another HUGE problem. Every day I read posts all over the Internet about the "stupid LFS" who sold 5 yellow tangs to somebody with a 10 g tank..... Then the LFS gets heck for it. Whatever happened to the end user being responsible?

Not to deviate too far off track (as if I ever do that!) but do you rely on the car salesman to teach you how to drive? Or fix the car? No, of course not. It is the buyer's responsibility to receive proper instruction before he begins.

Yes, the GOOD LFS take the time to ask questions and help guide their clients. Those that try to be good, might give some well-intentioned, but improper advice, and yeah, the lowest common denominator among us just want to sell you something before it croaks in their shop, and devil may care..... but at the end of the day, it's the person who takes it home that is ultimately responsible for their choice.

If the end-user, or hobbyist, or fish-tank-owner is responsible and accountable for their choices, (to bring this back on track...) then all the Tetra clips in the world wouldn't matter, because people would educate themselves and know this was not the right way to proceed. I know - we don't live in a perfect world, or even one that makes sense half of the time....... But still, if accountability is the issue, yeah CBS and Tetra screwed up, and big, but it's what people DO with that information that will make the difference.

Does anybody know if CBS or Tetra did anything to correct the misinformation?

Jenn

I mentioned this in the similar thread in the ARC forum when this CBS / Tetra debacle was brought up there....

I wish everybody got as worked up about cyanide use in the trade, as they did about this 3-minute clip. Cyanide was and is still a huge problem in Indonesia and Philippines, but few people care or are even aware of it. Maybe "Nemo" is farm raised now, but Dory isn't - and in fact Dory is a major cyanide target. Not all blue tangs are caught that way, but many are, as well as many other tangs, groupers, angels and other reef fishes. The problem is in the food fish industry AND the marine ornamentals industry. It kills fish, corals and divers.

If hobbyists got as riled up about that as they did about this television interview, some major changes could be effected in the trade.

I'll get off my soap box now

Jenn

i found someting on it



Dear Concerned Aquarist,

We want to take a moment of your time to announce the creation of the AMDA NET & TRAINING FUND. We are establishing this fund to direct the attention of the trade and the public toward the poor handling and catch procedures used to capture the animals used in the marine aquarium hobby in certain areas of the world. This is the first of many steps to be taken to eliminate the use of sodium cyanide to catch our aquarium and food organisms in many areas of the world.

The AMDA NET & TRAINING FUND is focused on improving the chain of custody of our aquarium animals from the collectors to your local retailer. The FUND will be used to buy appropriate netting and to train the collectors in the use of those nets. By improving the catch and handling procedures at the source, a major step toward preserving the environment and improving the quality of our hobby animals will be accomplished.

Your AMDA board through its membership is committed to eliminating the use of sodium cyanide in capturing fish for the marine hobby and the food industry.

Cyanide has been used for decades to capture our aquarium fish. The practice has caused untold damage to the fish, other organisms on the reef, the environment, and to the fishermen in the Philippines and Indonesia. Even though there has been some training over the last 20 years to convert the cyanide collectors to nets, there has not been enough progress to make a real difference. To date most of the effort has been lip service with little substantial progress toward eliminating this deadly practice. The netting needed to expand the technique in practice has been in very short supply. A major step toward stopping the decades long cyanide catch practice is now at hand, and you can help by providing a donation for nets and to facilitate training to the collectors in the use of those nets. The collectors in the Philippines are interested in changing the policies of old, but they need help.

AMDA is currently at the forefront in the attempt to correct the cyanide issues in the hobby during the past months. By using AMDA funds to send our president, Steve Robinson, to the Philippines to distribute the netting and to help train the collectors, we made sure the netting got into the right hands and that they knew how to use the tool. This was the first step to solve this ongoing problem and we need to continue the effort.

With your help and other initiatives, we plan to purchase more netting and continue to provide funds to train collectors in the Philippines to use netting. By expanding the collector's ability to catch fish with netting, the number of different species available to the hobby with fewer short and long term mortalities and far less environmental damage will result. Latent mortalities are the scourge of our hobby and we are on the brink of eliminating these needless mortalities.

In past years the fish mortalities were criticized by customers and retailers, but neither party really knew how to handle the problem in the Philippines and enough fish survived to keep the hobby somewhat happy. That is changing. The losses are unacceptable and we all agree and we now have some direction to begin to solve the problem of cyanide fishing.

Retailers will benefit by our actions and our customers will have fewer problems with keeping fish. At the same time the hobby, through your local aquarium dealer, will endorse new initiatives that use captive breeding or captive grow-out as a way to supply the hobby. Indeed in the upcoming AMDA newsletter, there will be an article by Gilles LeCaillon, a member of AMDA, using new catch procedures to catch unsettled fry in the plankton drift to grow them out in a captive situation. New things are happening all the time. This is an exciting time for us.

AMDA is proud to have initiated this new effort to stop the use of cyanide in our oceans, and we will continue to support the program we started just three short months ago. Other parties have initiated funds to purchase netting. AMDA applauds any help that can be provided to the collectors in the Philippines, but we also believe that providing netting without training is like providing tools to someone without the skills to use them.

Our president, Steve Robinson, has years of experience in training Philippine collectors to catch fish with netting. With AMDA distributing the netting and assisting in the training of the collectors, we believe we have a complete program that will finally show results after years of foot dragging.

This AMDA initiative is important to create a sustainable well-managed fishery that allows the environment, the collectors, and the hobby in the United States to flourish.

AMDA believes the future of the hobby is in the hands of our retailers. We are on the verge of making significant contributions to our hobby and the environment by stopping cyanide fishing and establishing safer and better ways to collect our aquarium inhabitants.

Please become a part of this initiative.

Donations can be sent to:

AMDA Net Fund
P.O. Box #1052
Madison, FL 32341 USA

Make checks payable to: AMDA Net Fund

Visit us: http://www.amdareef.com

Photo: Me-me catches a blue tang the right way, S. Robinson
Photo: Barrier nets, S. Robinson
Photo: Cyanide damage, S. Robinson
_________________
John Brandt

MASNA
MAC
CMAS-Chicago

Oh I'm very well aware of that fund, and I contributed to MSI's netting fund. Netting is on its way over to Ferdinand and his crew in PI, and I believe a similar project is in the works for Indonesia. It's not as simple as all that, but getting the fishers the material they need is a good start.

That's a huge issue, for another thread(s), I just find it interesting that so many, esp. over at RC got soooooooo worked up over this 3 minute clip that most people either didn't see, or promptly forgot about, than ever get worked up over the fact that divers are poisoning themselves and their reefs every day. Last time I looked at that thread on RC it was 32 pages long! Never seen a thread go past about 15 pages in another forum, regarding cyanide testing or industry reform.

Of course cyanide is the industry's dirty little secret.... it's not in your face like that clip was.

Trying to reform the industry is a double edged sword. Done right, it can make things better for everyone in the chain of custody. Done wrong, it could mean the end of the industry.

Jenn

If the end-user, or hobbyist, or fish-tank-owner is responsible and accountable for their choices, (to bring this back on track...) then all the Tetra clips in the world wouldn't matter, because people would educate themselves and know this was not the right way to proceed.

Click to expand...

and that is why i didnt waste my time with the mindless drivel on the thread at rc about this. NOBODY at rc or TRT is goign to run out and buy a 5g mini bow and stock it full of nemos and dorys and seahorses, because the tetra woman did it. they know better.

i agree with you too that it is ultimately the hobbyists responsibility to research before purchasing. but i feel that a responsible lfs, should help kick start that info seeking. it's not hard to get info these days, good bad or otherwise, especially with the boom of the internet, but sometimes, for some people it's finding that initial key to start the information seeking process, such as a site name, a few keywords etc...

the cyanide issue.... i wont even comment on that. other than to say i agree 100% i would love to see folks get as worked up about that, or boycott places that use cyanide capturing techniques, as they did over tetras misinformation. but i feel it's not gonna happen. many just dont care, probably for the reason you stated, it's not "in your face"

one thing i noticed in the clip, the tetrea spokeswoman mentioned that all of the fish in her demonstration were farm rasied in florida and better for tanks since they aren't wild cauught. i have never heard of farm rasied blue tangs.. is this true, or more misinformation. eventually for the new tank i will be getting a powder blue tang or regal tang, but thought they were all ocean captured?