Environmental Activists have shut down the collection of ornamental aquarium fish in Hawaii. Despite the ornamental collection of hawaiian tropical fish being one of the most carefully managed fisheries, and supported by over a decade of science and environmental reviews, a Hawaiian court order has invalidated all permits for live fish collection on the islands.
In this era of ‘alternative facts’, it doesn’t matter that sport-fishermen can spear as many large breeding fish as they want with absolutely no oversight, while aquarists want small specimens which have a high attrition rate in the wild anyway. The aquarium industry has been demonized and persecuted by a select few self-righteous extremists and Hawaiian fish exports now has been shut down until further notice.
There’s no telling how long the environmental assessment will take; could be a couple months, could be a few years. But in the meantime there will be no more imports of wild yellow tangs, bicolor and bartlett’s anthias, achilles tangs, tinker’s butterflyfish, bandit angelfish, flame wrasses and many other species from Hawaiian waters.
We can only hope that the results of the impact study proves once and for all what the industry knows to be true: that Hawaiian ornamental fish collection is the Case Study of a sustainable fishery and we can put these legal battles with environmental extremists to rest once and for all. [Hawaii News]
If you want to know that ornamental fish collecting is really like, and which side the scientists are on, definitely watch the informative video posted below.
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