MARINE ORNAMENTAL SPECIES COLLECTION, CULTURE & CONSERVATION pdf

It appears that tank-raised pygmy an-gelfishes will be available to consumers in the foreseeable future and that the rearing technol-ogy used for these important species will un-doubtedl

ORNAMENTAL SPECIES

COLLECTION,

CULTURE &

CONSERVATION

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ORNAMENTAL SPECIES

Iowa State Press

A Blackwell Publishing Company

James C Cato, Ph.D., is Director of the Florida Sea Grant College Program and

Professor at the University of Florida He earned B.S and M.S degrees at Texas Tech University and his Ph.D in Food and Resource Economics at the University of Florida.

Dr Cato has organized or participated in about 100 conferences and workshops, has given 96 papers and presentations, and has authored or co-authored over 150 publica- tions His academic achievements cover many aspects of coastal and marine econom- ics including boating, marinas, fisheries, aquaculture, and the value of safer seafood Recent priority areas of the Florida Sea Grant College Program include marine biotech- nology, fisheries, aquaculture (including marine ornamental fish), seafood safety, sus- tainable water-dependent businesses, water quality, coastal ecosystems and habitats and coastal storms.

Christopher L Brown, Ph.D., is Director of the Marine Biology Program and

Associate Chairman of the Department of Biological Science at Florida International University He graduated with honors from Union College, New York, earned his Ph.D.

at the University of Delaware, and had postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley Dr Brown's first faculty appointment was at the University of Hawaii, where he developed a research focus on ornamental fish culture and proposed the first international meeting on marine ornamentals His bibliography includes 50 publications on fish developmental biology and aquaculture.

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® Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America

First edition, 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marine ornamental species: collection, culture, and conservation /

edited by James C Cato and Christopher L Brown

p cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8138-2987-9 (alk paper)

1 Ornamental fishes 2 Marine aquarium fishes 3 Ornamental fish trade.

I Cato, James C II Brown, Christopher L

1952-SF457.1 M36 2003

639.34'2—dc21 2002154431 The last digit is the print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

John S Corbin, James C Cato, and Christopher L Brown

2 Culture of Marine Ornamentals: For Love, for Money, and for Science 11 Martin A Moe, Jr.

II Progress and Current Trends in Marine Ornamentals

A Trade, Marketing, and Economics

3 International Trade in Marine Aquarium Species: Using the

Global Marine Aquarium Database 31

Edmund Green

4 World Trade in Ornamental Species 49

Katia Olivier

5 The Consumption of Marine Ornamental Fish in the United States:

A Description from U.S Import Data 65

Cristina M Balboa

6 The U.S Wholesale Marine Ornamental Market: Trade, Landings,

and Market Opinions 77

Sherry L Larkin

B Health Management

7 Disease Diagnosis in Ornamental Marine Fish: A Retrospective

Analysis of 129 Cases 93

Ruth Francis-Floyd and RuthEllen Klinger

8 Captive Nutritional Management of Herbivorous Reef Fish Using

Surgeonfish (Acanthuridae) as a Model 101

G Christopher Tilghman, Ruth Francis-Floyd, and RuthEllen Klinger

C Certification

9 The Marine Aquarium Industry and Reef Conservation 109

Bruce W Bunting, Paul Holthus, and Sylvia Spalding

v

vi Contents

10 Wholesale and Retail Break-Even Prices for MAC-Certified Queen

Angelfish (Holancanthus ciliaris) 125

Sherry L Larkin, Chris de Bodisco, and Robert L Degner

D Management

11 Community-Based Management of Coral Reefs: An Essential Requisitefor Certification of Marine Aquarium Products Harvested from Reefsunder Customary Marine Tenure 141

Austin Bowden-Kerby

12 Sustainable Management Guidelines for Stony Coral Fisheries 167

Andrew W Bruckner

III The Invertebrates

A Live Rock Cultivation

13 The Economics of Live Rock and Live Coral Aquaculture 185

John E Parks, Robert S Pomeroy, and Christina M Balboa

14 Aquacultured Live Rock as an Alternative to Imported Wild-HarvestedLive Rock: An Update 207

William W Falls, J Nicholas Ehringer, Roy Herndon, Teresa

Herndon, Michael Nichols, Sandy Nettles, Cynthia Armstrong,

and Darlene Haverkamp

B Ornamental Shrimp

15 Overview of Marine Ornamental Shrimp Aquaculture 221

Ricardo Calado, Luis Narciso, Ricardo Araujo, and Junda Lin

C Corals

16 Coral Culture—Possible Future Trends and Directions 233

Michael Arvedlund, Jamie Craggs, and Joe Pecorelli

IV Reef Fish

Christopher L Brown, Brian Cole, Claudia Farfan, and Clyde S Tamaru

B Feeding and Nutrition

19 Advances in the Culture of Rotifers for Use in Rearing Marine

21 Rearing the Coral Seahorse, Hippocampus barbouri, on Live and

Inert Prey 289

Michael F Payne

22 The Copepod/Artemia Tradeoff in the Captive Culture of Hippocampus

erectus, a Vulnerable Species in Lower New York State 297

Todd Gardner

V Stakeholder Perspectives

A Museums and Public Aquariums

23 The Role of Public Aquariums in the Conservation and Sustainability

of the Marine Ornamentals Trade 307

Heather Hall and Douglas Warmolts

B Collectors

24 Trends Determined by Cyanide Testing on Marine Aquarium Fish in

the Philippines 327

Peter J Rubec, Vaughan R Pratt, Bryan McCullough, Benita Manipula,

Joy Alban, Theo Espero, and Emma R Suplido

C Hobbyists

25 Cultured Marine Ornamentals—Retail Consumer Perspectives 343

Scott E Clement

D Government

26 Balancing Collection and Conservation of Marine Ornamental

Species in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 353

Billy D Causey

E NGOs/Environmental Management

27 Wild-Caught Marine Species and the Ornamental Aquatic Industry 363

John Dawes

28 Transforming the Marine Ornamentals Industry: A Business Approach 371

Andreas Merkl, Darcy L Wheeles, John Claussen,

and Heather F Thompson

General Index 381

Species Index 389

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By all accounts, Marine Ornamentals 2001:

Collection, Culture and Conservation, was a

highly successful meeting The November 2001

gathering in Orlando, Florida, was attended by

more than 300 individuals from 23 countries,

representing a broad cross-section of interests

in the marine ornamental fish and invertebrate

industry, including scientists, hobbyists,

stu-dents, commercial collectors, and

representa-tives of government agencies This, the second

assembly of its kind, yielded evidence of

tech-nical progress, new approaches to old

prob-lems, and the attainment of a collective industry

voice on matters of universal concern

The group that assembled for Marine

Ornamentals 2001 represents an international

body of people that, until 1999, never really had

a dedicated forum for discussion For many

years prior to that, academic, regulatory, and

business practitioners certainly had ample

rea-sons to get together, and there is nothing new

about the potential benefits of developing an

in-dustrywide consensus about the best way to

ap-proach thorny conservation and economic

is-sues Nevertheless, and despite the magnitude

of the economic scale of the marine

ornamen-tals trade, the marine segment of the

interna-tional aquarium industry had only the options

of assembling as a subgroup among broader

groups that included the overwhelmingly larger

freshwater component of the industry, or with

smaller groups that focused on marine

orna-mental issues but not necessarily on an

all-in-clusive, multidisciplinary global scale In part

this may have been the result of the

recreation-al nature of the consumer market that

ornamen-tal fish serve, which has had the tendency to

ob-scure the seriousness of reef conservation and

economic matters Marine Ornamentals 1999

filled this vacancy, on something of a trial basis,

beginning with a four-day conference in Kona,

Hawaii That conference attracted a

multipro-fessional group of people that made an initialattempt to come to grips with the interests, con-cerns, and scientific progress of the marine or-namentals trade The published products of thatconference include a special 240-page volume

of Aquarium Sciences and Conservation, with

19 chapters representing a diverse range of terests, and a 127-page Hawaii Sea Grant vol-ume of contributed papers The conference wasorganized around the headings collection, cul-ture, and conservation, and among the keythemes emerging at that conference was the de-sire for the participants in this trade to regulatethemselves in order to set and maintain a highstandard of environmental accountability intheir approach to the use and enjoyment of theworld's reef resources With that meeting, base-line economic and biological data began toemerge, and many of the important conserva-tion and economic issues began to come intofocus Although there were sharply differingpoints of view on a variety of details, a certaincommonality of interest became apparentamong the participating representatives of gov-erning agencies, public aquariums, aquacultureresearchers, collectors, businesspeople, hobby-ists, and journalists The common denominator

in-is that we all share in the love of reef organin-ismsand have an abiding interest in their perpetua-tion Among the most important products ofMarine Ornamentals 1999 was a resoundingvote in favor of a second conference, which was

to be held in 2001 in Florida

The 2001 meeting held in Orlando, Florida,drew worldwide registration and followed aprogram that explored and expanded uponthemes identified in the inaugural meeting in

1999 Keynote and plenary speakers

represent-ed six different countries, and papers were tributed by authors from 13 countries The con-cept of sustainability had come intoprominence, and sessions stretching over two

con-ix

days dealt specifically with the need for this

in-dustry to eliminate exploitative and

short-sight-ed elements and cultivate sustainability Clearly,

there are several ways for the industry to attain

a higher degree of sustainability, including the

establishment of an industrywide standard for

collection and shipping practices, leading to

re-duced mortality and waste of reef resources In

addition, the continued development of

meth-ods to culture marine ornamental species is also

viewed as an eventual solution, or at least a

par-tial solution, to the currently heavy dependence

on the harvest of wild stocks

Among the more exciting events at the

Marine Ornamentals 2001 conference was the

announcement by the Marine Aquarium

Council of the launch of a new standard for

cer-tification ("MAC Cercer-tification") for

environ-mentally conscious practitioners of reef fish

harvest, transport, and marketing This is a

his-toric development, and one that addresses one

of the marine ornamentals industry's most

volatile flash-points—the perceived choice in

developing nations between continued reef

de-struction and starvation in coastal communities

that have come to depend on reef products This

announcement infused the conference with an

optimistic tone and a sense that one of the

diffi-cult socioeconomic problems of this industry is

being tackled Another major buzz went

through the conference with the news of

break-throughs in the larval rearing of the pygmy

an-gelfishes by two aquaculture pioneers in

Hawaii—Frank Baensch of Reef Culture

Technologies and Charles Laidley of the

Oceanic Institute As has so often been the case

in the biological sciences, a healthy

competi-tion has yielded what appears to be a photo

fin-ish It appears that tank-raised pygmy

an-gelfishes will be available to consumers in the

foreseeable future and that the rearing

technol-ogy used for these important species will

un-doubtedly be adapted to other fishes as theaquaculture side of the industry progresses.Yet another new direction came to light atthe Marine Ornamentals 2001 conference, with

a significantly enriched program in the area offish health management; we are coming to rec-ognize that marine ornamental fish and inverte-brates can benefit from an organized and pro-fessional approach to their health needs,through research, veterinary care, and educa-tion A plenary presentation by MichaelStoskopf and three full sessions of contributedpapers on nutrition and disease raised aware-ness and expectations of a rising standard ofhealth care for marine ornamentals

With the emerging sense of community that

an interdisciplinary meeting of this sort fosters,there is a distinct perception that it becomespossible that the sum of the impacts of these in-dividual accomplishments can become largerthan its component parts Real advancement isbest made by driven individuals focusing andexpending their creative energies on problemsolving, but synergy comes into play throughcoordination with others that have shared orpartially overlapping interests This industry isalready showing signs of becoming stronger,more mature, and more responsible as a result

of the networking and open exchange of ideasthat began with this pair of conferences, MarineOrnamentals 1999 and Marine Ornamentals

2001 The industry is taking the initial steps toredefine itself through a coordinated effort toeliminate the destructive and short-sighted prac-tices associated with profiteering, to establishsafe and effective new methods of collectingand marketing fish, to develop sensible and reli-able alternatives to the near-complete depend-ence of this industry on wild animals, to estab-lish a professional standard of health care forour marine ornamental animals, and to educatethe public, consumers, and regulatory bodies

X

Each of the authors and coauthors of the

chap-ters in this book are gratefully acknowledged

for taking the time to write the chapters and to

respond quickly to our comments and

sugges-tions Marine Ornamentals '01 was held in late

November 2001, and by August 2002, the book

was completed and submitted to the publisher

This occurred only because of the dedication of

each contributor Ms Jacquelyn Whitehouse is

greatly acknowledged for her contribution and

assistance in processing and organizing the

draft chapter manuscripts

We also thank the 336 participants from 23

countries who attended Marine Ornamentals

'01 Their attendance and the questions they

asked during presentations not only made the

conference possible but also added to the final

quality of the chapters in this book Major

sponsors for Marine Ornamentals '01 were

Florida Sea Grant; Florida Department of

Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Division of

Aquaculture; and the National Sea Grant

College Program Cosponsors were: Hawaii,

Mississippi/Alabama, Oregon, and Virginia Sea

Grant; Living Seas at Walt Disney World®;

Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine; and the

University of Florida's Institute of Food and

Agricultural Sciences Contributors were

Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas,and New York Sea Grant; Florida InternationalUniversity Marine Biology Program;Ornamental Fish International; and theFisheries Industry Division of the UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Organization.Trade show participants were AquariumSystems/Marineland; Aquatic Eco-Systems,Inc.; Dolphin Fiberglass Products, Inc.; FrigidUnits, Inc.; Keeton Industries; MarineAquarium Council; Marine Biotech, Inc.;Marine Specialties International; New LifeInternational, Inc.; Ocean Dreams, Inc.; PacificAqua Farms; Segrest Farms; and SignatureCoral Co Whereas the sponsors and trade showparticipants did not contribute directly to thecompletion of this book, they, like the atten-dees, made Marine Ornamentals '01 possibleand thus indirectly caused the book to be writ-ten The academic, agency, NGO, and industrysponsors also allowed the conference to main-tain a nice balance of scientific and applied fo-cus as is also reflected throughout the chapters

of the book

Finally, the editors are grateful to FloridaInternational University and the University ofFlorida for allowing us to use our time to serve

as editors

xi

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Chapter numbers appear in parentheses.

Harry Ako (19)

College of Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture

Molecular Bioscience and Biosystems

Engineering

St John 511

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 USA

hako@hawaii.edu

Joy Alban (24)

International Marinelife Alliance

83 West Capitol Drive, Bo Kapitolyo

Pasig City (Metro Manila)

Research Fellow, Danaq Consulting, Ltd

Department of Coral Ecology and Aquaculture

Radmand Steins Alle 16C, 619

2000 Fredericksberg, Denmark

ma@danaq.dk

Christina M Balboa (5,13)Coastal and Marine Research AssociatesBiological Resources Program

World Resources Institute

10 G Street, NE Suite 800Washington, DC 20002 USAcristina.balboa @ yale.eduAustin Bowden-Kerby (11)Project Scientist, Coral Gardens InitiativeCounterport International / Foundation ofthe Peoples of the South PacificP.O Box 14447

Suva, Fiji Islandsbowdenkerby@connect.com.fjChristopher L Brown (Ed., 1,18)Director, Marine Biology ProgramFellow, Honors College

Florida International UniversityAcademic Building 1, Room 318

3000 NE 151st StreetNorth Miami, Florida 33181 USAbrownch@fiu.edu

Andrew W Bruckner (12)NOAA Fisheries

Office of Protected Resources

1315 East West HighwaySilver Spring, Maryland 20910 USAandy.bruckner@noaa.gov

Bruce W Bunting (9)Vice PresidentCenter for Conservation FinanceWorld Wildlife Fund U.S

1250 24th Street NWWashington, DC 20037 USAbruce.bunting@wwfus.org

xiii

Ricardo Calado (15)

Laboratorio Maritimo da Guia

Faculdade Ciencias Universidade Lisboa

Estrada do Guincho

2750-642 Cascais

Portugal

rjcalado@hotmail.com

James C Cato (Ed., 1)

Professor, Food and Resource Economics

Director, Florida Sea Grant College Program

423 Washington Street, 4th Floor

San Francisco, California 94111 USA

john@cea.sfex.com

Scott E Clement (25)

Research Assistant

Fisheries and Illinois Aquaculture Center

Southern Illinois University

Carbondale, Illinois 62901 USA

Aquaculture Development Program

Hawaii Department of Agriculture

1177 Alacea Street, Room 400

Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 USA

29692 Sabinillas, ManilvaMalaga, Spain

secretariat @ornamental-fish-int.orgChris de Bodisco (10)

Research EconomistFood and Resource Economics DepartmentUniversity of Florida

P.O Box 110240Gainesville, Florida 32611-0240 USAcdebodisco@mail.ifas.ufl.edu

Robert L Degner(l0)Professor

Food and Resource Economics DepartmentUniversity of Florida

P.O Box 110240Gainesville, Florida 32611-0240 USARLDegner@mail.ifas.ufl.edu

J Nicholas Ehringer (14)Professor

Hillsborough Community College

10414 E Columbus DriveTampa, Florida 33619-7865 USAnehringer@hcc.cc.fl.us

Theo Espero (24)International Marinelife Alliance

83 West Capitol Drive, Bo KapitolyoPasig City (Metro Manila)

1601 Philippinest_espero@hotmail.comWilliam W Falls (14)Aquaculture Program Manager and AssociateProfessor

Hillsborough Community College

10414 E Columbus DriveTampa, Florida 33619-7856 USAwfalls@hcc.cc.fl.us

Claudia Farfan (18)Department of Zoology

2538 The MallEdmondson HallHonolulu, Hawaii 96822 USAcfarfan@cicese.mx

xiv

Ruth Francis-Floyd (7,8)

Professor

Department of Large Animal Clinical Science

and Department of Fisheries and Aquatic

Marine and Coastal Program

UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Ocean Dreams, Inc

13005 Sea Critters Lane

Dover, Florida 33527-3648 USA

oceandreamsmarti@hotmail.com

Teresa Herndon (14)

Ocean Dreams, Inc

13005 Sea Critters Lane

Dover, Florida 33527-3648 USA

seacritters@compuserve.com

G Joan Holt (17)

Marine Science Institute

750 Channel View Drive

Port Aransas, Texas 78373 USA

joan@utmsi.utexas.edu

Paul Holthus (9)Executive DirectorMarine Aquarium Council

923 Nuuana AvenueHonolulu, Hawaii 96817 USApaul.holthus@aquariumcouncil.orgRuthEllen Klinger (7,8)

Biological ScientistDepartment of Large Animal Clinical SciencesUniversity of Florida

P.O Box 100136Gainesville, Florida 32610-0136 USAklingerr@ufl.edu

Sherry L Larkin (6,10)Assistant ProfessorFood and Resource Economics DepartmentUniversity of Florida

P.O Box 110240Gainesville, Florida 32611-0240 USAslarkin@ufl.edu

Junda Lin (15)ProfessorDepartment of Biological SciencesFlorida Institute of Technology

150 University BoulevardMelbourne, Florida 32901 USAjlin@fit.edu

Benita Manipula (24)International Marinelife Alliance

83 West Capitol Drive, Bo KapitolyoPasig City (Metro Manila)

1601 Philippinesbench_manipula@hotmail.comBryan McCullough (24)International Marinelife Alliance

119 Merchant Street, Suite 610Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 USAbrian@marine.org

Andreas Merkl (28)Conservation and Community Investment Forum

423 Washington Street, 4th FloorSan Francisco, California 94111 USAandreas@cea.sfex.com

Martin A Moe, Jr (2)Green Turtle Publications

222 Gulfview DriveIslamorada, Florida 33036 USAmartin_moe@yahoo.com

XVI Contributors

Luis Narciso (15)

Laboratorio Maritimo da Guia

Faculdade Ciencias Universidade Lisboa

FAO/Fishery Industries Division

Fish Utilization and Marketing Service

Viale delle Terme di Caracalla

00100 Rome, Italy

katia.Olivier@free.fr

John E Parks (13)

Coastal and Marine Research Associate

Biological Resources Program

World Resources Institute

World Resources Institute

10 G Street N.E

Washington, D.C 20002 USArpomeroy@wri.org

Vaughan R Pratt (24)International Marinelife Alliance

110 Merchant Street, Suite 610Honolulu, Hawaii 96813 USAvpratt@marine.org

Peter J Rubec (24)Senior ScientistInternational Marinelife Alliance

2800 4th Street NorthSuite 123

St Petersburg, Florida 33704 USApeterrubec@cs.com

Vernon T Sato (19)Division of Aquatic ResourcesAvenue Fisheries Research Center

1039 Sand Island ParkwayHonolulu, Hawaii 96819 USAvtsato@compuserve.comSylvia Spalding (9)Communications DirectorMarine Aquarium Council

923 Nuuana AvenueHonolulu, Hawaii 96817 USAsylvia.spalding@aquariumcouncil.orgEmma R Suplido (24)

International Marinelife Alliance

83 West Capitol Drive, Bo KapitolyoPasig City (Metro Manila)

1601 Philippinesmaree_cs@hotmail.comClydeS.Tamaru (18,19)Hawaii Sea Grant College ProgramSchool of Ocean and Earth ScienceTechnology

University of Hawaii at ManoaHonolulu, Hawaii 96822 USActamaru@hawaii.edu

and

Heather F Thompson (28)

Conservation and Community Investment

Forum

423 Washington Street, 4th Floor

San Francisco, California 94111 USA

heather@cea.sfex.com

G Christopher Tilghman (8)

Graduate Research Assistant

Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Department

7922 NW 71st Avenue

Gainesville, Florida 32611-0600 USA

fishkill@ufl.edu

Douglas Warmolts (23)

Assistant Director of Living Collections

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

9990 Riverside Drive

Powell, Ohio 43065 USA

dwarmolt@colszoo.org

Ronald P Weidenbach (19)Co-owner/Manager

Hawaii Fish CompanyP.O Box 1039Waialua, Hawaii 96791-1039 USAhawaiifish@msn.com

Darcy L Wheeles (28)Conservation and Community InvestmentForum

423 Washington Street, 4th FloorSan Francisco, California 94111 USAdarcy@cea.sfex.com

Chris M.C Woods (20)National Institute of Water and AtmosphericResearch

P.O Box 14-901WellingtonNew Zealandc.woods@niwa.cri.nz

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This volume consists of a collection of 28

chap-ters resulting from papers presented at the

Marine Ornamentals 2001: Collection, Culture

and Conservation conference, in keeping with

the goal of documenting the status of the

ma-rine ornamental fish and invertebrate trade The

chapters are written by some of the invited

keynote speakers and by some of the speakers

who submitted contributed papers The

per-spectives are mixed and include representative

contributions from researchers, economists, and

various industry stakeholders It is the intent of

the editors that this will serve as a snapshot of

the status of issues in the marine ornamentals

world, which we consider to be something of an

action shot It is a rapidly changing industry

with fast-moving elements

The marine aquarium hobby has grown

steadily, in large measure as a result of

im-provements in reef tank technology It is now

possible for a moderately experienced aquarist

to enjoy a thriving marine aquarium with

rea-sonable expectations of survival among its

oc-cupants Technology has driven growth in

de-mand, but only a small part of this demand is

being met by farmed fishes and invertebrates

Estimates of the percentage of wild fish

mar-keted vary but still hover well above 90%

Part I, Introduction, of this book includes

two benchmark chapters that are both packed

with original survey data Issues of

sustainabili-ty are at the core of the first chapter, presented

by a group representing the organizers of the

Marine Ornamentals 2001 conference, led by

John Corbin An electronic survey was

conduct-ed during the course of that conference,

instan-taneously tabulating the responses of

partici-pants to a series of simple questions about

complex issues More than an exercise in

meas-uring opinions, this survey established and

pri-oritized recommendations for industry positions

on a range of issues, including some that are

contentious It also provided some insight intothe demographics of conference attendees,among which researchers from the UnitedStates were best represented, but many other oc-cupations and nationalities were represented, in-cluding people who had a wide range of experi-ence in the marine ornamentals industry A total

of eighteen priority recommendations under sixheadings were set, establishing a well-definedcatalog of industry concerns, preferences, andperceptions These range from endorsement ofthe new Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) cer-tification procedures to the development andbroad dissemination of appropriate technology

to end users Clear preferences also emergedwith regard to the goals for future conferences.The second chapter is by one of the peoplemost closely identified with and in large meas-ure responsible for progress in the culture ofmarine ornamentals—Martin Moe Moe'schapter presents results of a survey in whichmore than 400 respondents characterized theirexperience with the culture of marine fish andinvertebrates, as well as perceptions about thestatus, constraints, and future of aquaculture ofthese species Although this is a casual survey,

as opposed to a statistical survey, numeroustrends are apparent in the results In general,hobbyists prefer cultured organisms to wild or-ganisms, support the goal of a conservation-based industry, and believe in the continued de-velopment of aquaculture technology Thecommercial sector is struggling with the culture

of marine ornamentals, both technically and nancially, but 83% of respondents believe cul-tured marine ornamentals will eventually be amajor factor in the market Replies from re-searchers indicated that research funding is ei-ther difficult to find or unavailable and confirmthe axiomatic view that larval feeding and sur-vival are believed to be the rate-limiting con-straints The remainder of the volume is organ-xix

fi-XX Introduction

ized into four parts, each with chapters falling

under several thematic subheadings

Within Part II, Progress and Current Trends

in Marine Ornamentals, we include the topics

economics, health management, certification,

and management This section represents the

state of the art of the marine ornamentals

in-dustry, as seen in the advances being made and

patterns that emerge in the data

Four chapters under Part II, A., Trade,

Marketing, and Economics establish a current

economic profile of the industry Contributions

in this section establish the most complete and

current statistics and trends on trade in marine

ornamental species in the United States

(Balboa, Larkin) and on a global scale (Green,

Olivier) Collectively, chapters 3 to 6 establish

an economic framework sufficient to

under-stand the forces that drive the industry The

analysis of global perspectives on the trade by

Green takes a circumspect view of available

databases and recent analyses, raising

impor-tant questions about common assumptions and

conclusions that have been reached An analysis

of the strengths, weaknesses, and trends to be

found within the Global Marine Aquarium

Database (GMAD) is a particular focus of this

chapter Supply-side trends are the primary

fo-cus of Olivier's analysis of United Nations

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

sta-tistics These international trade data reveal

pat-terns of production, consumption, and shifting

market shares, and also bring to light relevant

labor and environmental issues Larkin's

chap-ter uses a combination of data from landings

and surveys to establish an organized overview

of marine ornamental product sources and

des-tinations within the United States Balboa's

analysis compiles U.S Fish and Wildlife and

U.S Customs declaration data, resulting in a

summary of economic trends over time that

in-cludes, among other things, the relative value

per piece of marine fish and the growth of

ma-rine as opposed to freshwater imports

The next section of this volume, Part II, B.,

presents selected contributions from the Health

Management symposia, representing two of the

most promising areas of current interest in the

care of marine fish: disease and nutrition

Thankfully, the unfortunate image of the

aquar-ium hobby as a rather short one-way trip for

fish from the aquarium shop to a porcelain

bur-ial-at-sea is becoming an outdated concept,

thanks in part to quantum advances in fish care.Increasingly, consumers are able to providelong-term management and even set up homefish-breeding operations, drawing upon thecontributions of both commercial innovatorsand scientific investigators Support for diseasediagnosis among marine ornamental species is

a relatively new development; it has not beenuncommon for marine ornamental fish refer-ence texts to provide a cursory description of afew well-known pathogens and some precau-tionary comments about aquarium managementand nutrition as the best means of avoiding thelot of them, and heaven help you if they strike.Dramatic changes have occurred in the pre-cision of diagnostic techniques within the pastseveral years, as methodically explained byFrancis-Floyd and Klinger in chapter 7 Much

of the guesswork is evaporating as a quence of a rapidly growing knowledge base.This chapter, based on the 129 marine orna-mental fish disease case histories compiled atthe University of Florida's fish disease labora-tory, allows the reader to gain insights into thefrequency and characteristics of particular dis-eases, their symptoms, and etiologies as theyvary among a range of affected species.Nutritional status has long been recognized as adeterminant of disease resistance in aquariumfish, but again older generalities are giving way

conse-to specific knowledge In chapter 8, Tilghmanand co-workers have presented a controlledstudy of disease development in a model organ-ism, the herbivorous surgeonfish, in which nu-tritional variables had a distinct impact on themaintenance of body weight and resistance dur-ing an outbreak of cryptokaryosis

Among the most troubling of issues in themarine ornamental trade is the fact that histori-cally, short-term economic gains have beenmade at the expense of reef health on an ecosys-tem scale, sometimes with disastrous results.The resolution of the problem of environmentalindifference by those who would exploit thereefs for financial gain rose among the priorityrecommendations of the Marine Ornamentals

1999 conference, and was identifiable as onecritical issue upon which the future of the in-dustry hinges In order for environmental sensi-tivity and sustainability to be an industry stan-dard rather than a pair of overused buzzwords,comprehensive and industrywide methods ofaccountability must be put in place The long-

anticipated establishment of a certification

pro-tocol for reef fish collection and shipment is the

subject of chapters 9 and 10, Part II, C First,

Bunting and coauthors make a convincing case

that reef use and conservation are not mutually

exclusive Reef use is characterized from the

points of view of various and sometimes

com-peting users, and the impacts of human use are

illustrated The Marine Aquarium Council's

certification process is introduced, and the

or-ganization behind this process is spelled out

MAC certification is a potentially powerful

de-vice, which could begin to address the complex

and urgent sustainability issues, in part by

set-ting up a verifiable method of direcset-ting market

preferences to organisms that have been

col-lected and transported in an environmentally

re-sponsible way Ultimately, the success or

fail-ure of MAC certification will have a great deal

to do with the validity of the underlying

eco-nomic assumptions The competitiveness of

MAC-certified fish with potentially cheaper

al-ternatives may have the final say as to whether

the conservation goals of the Marine Aquarium

Council will be met The environmental

friend-liness of the MAC-certification approach may

have some costs to consumers, although it is

al-so arguable that the certification process will

improve economic returns, through reduced

losses and as a result of public perceptions that

certified fish have increased value relative to

uncertified competitors Larkin and coauthors

model the economics of MAC-certification,

us-ing the Queen Angelfish, Holocanthus ciliaris.

This model predicts anticipated costs and

bene-fits of MAC certification and establishes a set of

break-even prices that are dependant in part on

the size of specimens being marketed

Reef policy—particularly with regard to the

harvest of ornamental fish and invertebrates—is

set differently in different parts of the world,

and the inclination to guide this policy is

vari-ably influenced by economic and conservation

motives Two chapters in Part II, D.,

Management, explore the mechanisms of reef

management policy

Chapter 11 discusses a unique,

community-based method of reef management that is in

place in Fiji (Bowden-Kerby) Resource

man-agement in this model is tightly intertwined

with social conventions, as opposed to a

European law-based set of standards left in

place throughout much of the Pacific Islands by

colonialists Village-level users of the reefs inFiji have a recognized legal entitlement to reefuse, along with some responsibilities; these in-dividuals are recognized as reef custodians.Comanagement of the reef, by the governmentand by reef custodians, is a delicate balance inwhich a fair amount of authority resides withvillage chiefs This is a balance that is also in-fluenced by the interests of nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs) as well as recognizedeconomic engines sharing the coastal commu-nity (e.g., resorts) This is a complex manage-ment model that offers some advantages overthe hard and fast rule of law, in the application

of community interests and sound conservationprinciples to common-sense decision making.This model is laid out in such a way that thecommunity-based principles of governmentmay, in part or as a whole, be considered for ap-plication elsewhere

A slightly more Westernized view of reefmanagement is the subject of chapter 12, byBruckner The long-term viability of the ap-proach to management of coral fisheries (ortheir sustainability) is presented as an approachrequiring some degree of control over elementsthat include the extent and methods of harvest-ing allowed and the impact that extractivemethods can be allowed to have on the reef Incontrast with the social or community-basedapproach discussed above, the ecosystem-basedapproach uses the application of biologicalprinciples to industry regulation The establish-ment of best management practices for coralharvests may involve the establishment ofspecies quotas, or localized restrictions that ro-tate over time, in order to minimize the collec-tion pressure on any one particular reef habitat

A scientifically based decision-making process

of this sort requires baseline data on the bution and biology of corals, often calling forongoing technical support in the managementprocess

distri-Aquaculture technology for corals is oping at a fast pace, and captive rearing is ex-pected to relieve increasing amounts of pres-sure on wild reef corals and other invertebrates.Part III, The Invertebrates, A., Live RockCultivation, addresses progress in the area ofcultivation of live rock—the colorful assem-blages of rock or calcium carbonate and settledorganisms that are in high demand among hob-byists In chapter 13, Parks and colleagues

present the results of an economic analysis of

the costs and returns of coral and live rock

cul-ture in Florida, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and

the Philippines This chapter includes the sort

of business analyses that are required by

entre-preneurs or investors, specifically the sort that

predict the extent of investment and the number

of years required for a venture to become

prof-itable The scale of the venture and the costs of

labor are important determinants of

profitabili-ty As assumed in the modeling of economics

for certified fish, discussed above, it appears

that environmentally friendly products could

eventually carry a premium in the marine

inver-tebrate markets, although no such certification

is in place Overall, the financial risks of coral

and live rock cultivation remain high, and the

likelihood of profitability, at least in the near

term and under present market conditions,

re-mains low The potential viability of such

oper-ations may improve as changes in the

regula-tions or enforcement of regularegula-tions of the

harvest or transportation of live, wild

inverte-brates occur The culture of live rock may thrive

on a smaller, local scale in areas where the

har-vest of wild material has been prohibited, as

de-scribed in Florida by Falls and coauthors in

chapter 14 This chapter examines the history

and trends of live rock cultivation, concluding

that economics is not the only factor inhibiting

entrepreneurship, but that bureaucracy can also

inhibit the process Both the slow returns on

in-vestments and the restrictive nature of

regula-tions have limited the growth of live rock

culti-vation businesses in Florida, although slow

growth is in fact evident

The update on invertebrate aquaculture

con-tinues in Part III, B., chapter 15, with an

overview of the aquaculture of marine

orna-mental shrimp by Calado et al Invertebrate

shrimp cultivation has been the beneficiary of

technology developed in support of the culture

of Penaeid shrimps as an edible crop and has

al-so been the subject of a dedicated research

ef-fort focused on the life cycles and biological

re-quirements of the ornamental species

Ornamental shrimps are not especially difficult

to keep in captivity, although the rearing of

lar-vae is by no means an intuitive process As in

the case of so many other marine species, it is

the successful cultivation of larvae, or in other

words, the reliable production of juveniles that

limits the development of commercial

applica-tions Most people feel that this is a matter oflarval nutrition Calado and coauthors summa-rize the rearing systems available, the speciesunder investigation, and the problems and is-sues that remain the subjects of active study.The cultivation of corals has been through afairly exciting upswing recently, as the use ofsimple fragmentation techniques has become arecognized method of propagating corals in suf-ficient quantities to support commercial opera-tions, at least on a small scale In Part III, C.,chapter 16, Arvedlund and colleagues assessthe present and predict the future of coral culti-vation in a comprehensive overview of theasexual approach to coral propagation, consid-ering both the captive propagation of corals inclosed systems, some of which are not evennear the ocean, and in situ in the marine envi-ronment Selected case studies are used to illus-trate taxonomically based trends in the propa-gation methods and potentials of many of themost desired species or groups of corals Thescientific content of reports of coral cultivation

is lagging somewhat behind the descriptivework, according to Arvedlund et al., and thischapter underscores the need for more peer-re-viewed basic science in the biology of corals.Ornamental fish are the mainstays of the or-namental industry, both in the marine and fresh-water sectors Part IV, Reef Fishes, covers theaquaculture of marine ornamental fish, withsubsections focused on A Hatchery Methods,

B Feeding and Nutrition, and C Seahorses andtheir cultivation and issues of sustainability

A research group at the University of Texasled by Joan Holt has maintained a long history

of productivity in the culture of marine mental fish and invertebrates, including the de-velopment of methods of inducing spawningand, especially the investigation of suitable lar-val rearing methods In chapter 17, Holt pro-vides a brief review of the status of hatcherytechnology for ornamental marine fish species,including discussions of culture systems andthe all-important matter of larval nutrition Theuse of diets sufficiently enriched in fatty acids

orna-or other diets in which some food is wasted troduces water quality concerns, so much of ourcurrent larval feeding technology can be viewed

in-as a series of choices among trade-offs This isclearly a report on an ongoing process, one thatwill be of use to anyone wishing to try his or herhand at rearing marine ornamental larvae orxxii

wishing to make a contribution to the basic

bi-ology of these organisms

Chapter 18, by Brown and coauthors,

ad-dresses a unique aspect of culture, using a

suit-able freshwater model to take a predictive look

at some of the technology that is likely to be

transferred before long to marine ornamental

fish Usually, once the life cycle is closed and

an adequate means of rearing larvae has been

established, attention turns to the production of

larvae year-round, on demand Using

tech-niques developed in the culture of marine fish

for human consumption, photoperiod,

tempera-ture, and dietary manipulations were used to

trigger reproductive maturation several months

ahead of schedule in the freshwater ornamental

fish, the rainbow shark (Epalzeorhynchus

fre-natus) These fish were then induced to spawn

with hormones, demonstrating the applicability

of environmental and endocrine manipulations

to a species that has generally been constrained

to spawning at just one time of year These

au-thors predict that this technology will be

trans-ferred yet again, from freshwater aquaculture

back to marine aquaculture, at some time in the

near future when production is limited not by

larval feeding, but by seasonal patterns of

ga-mete production

The feeding of larval fishes with the most

ad-vanced hatchery technology relies heavily on

ro-tifers, especially as an initial diet Tamaru et al

examine the biology, nutritional value, and

cul-ture of rotifers in chapter 19 that combines a

re-view of the status of this field and a set of

origi-nal data documenting performance parameters

of rotifers used in marine fish culture These

in-clude practical data on the nutritional content of

rotifers enriched with six different nutritional

supplements, and other data that will be useful to

the larviculturist Experimental results include

depictions of rotifer consumption rates and

lar-val weights as functions of feed (rotifer)

densi-ties, impacts of enrichment media on rotifer

mortality, and stress tolerance of fish that have

consumed enriched versus unenriched rotifers

The seahorses have been the focus of a

sus-tained aquaculture effort, and one in which

some considerable ground is being gained

Several species of seahorses have been

cul-tured, with varying degrees of success, and

much of the current attention is focused on the

refinement of protocols, reduction of culture

costs, and improvement of culture efficiency

and consistency Some urgency exists aboutseahorse cultivation, because of the combinedeffect of a continued demand not only for theornamental trade but also for use in traditionalChinese medicine These and perhaps other fac-tors have led to an apparent crisis in the avail-ability of wild seahorses for harvest Threechapters, 20 through 22, provide insight into thecontinuing progress being made in seahorseaquaculture

Hippocampus abdominalis is a seahorse

species that has presented some significantproblems with larval mortality in its prelimi-nary rearing efforts Woods reports in his chap-ter that steady advancement is being made inthe rearing of the larvae of this species A set ofcontrolled experiments is reported in which op-timal water temperature is determined, varia-tion in stocking density is examined as it affectsgrowth, and the use of inert foods as a cost con-tainment measure was explored Viewed collec-tively, these results cast an image of this species

of seahorse as a prime candidate for cultivation,

in which high survival rates and, consequently,high yields can be expected, and mass cultiva-tion appears to be just around the corner.Payne has also focused on the subject of bal-ancing live and inert diets in his culture subject,

H barbouri This is a species of which

tank-reared specimens are already commonly able, so much of the current effort is aimed atmaking production costs more manageable byreplacing live feeds with frozen dietary compo-nents, ideally without any compromise in prod-uct quality In this chapter, Payne presents orig-inal data comparing the growth and survival of

avail-juvenile H barbouri on diets consisting of live fatty-acid enriched Artemia, and enriched or

unenriched frozen copepods These studiesclearly demonstrate that this species of seahorsecan thrive on a frozen diet, raising hopes thatcommercial enterprises can thrive as well, with

a production cost burden that can be reduced byeliminating the need for continuous culture oflive feed organisms

The need to develop more cost-effective ets was also the motivation of an experimentalstudy by Gardner, who is seeking to refine cul-

di-ture methods for Hippocampus erectus,

espe-cially by reducing the cost of feeds for youngjuveniles These fish prosper on copepod-inten-sive diets, but the cost of providing these is pro-hibitively high for commercialization Again,

XXIV Introduction

the issue is squarely oriented on the

minimiza-tion of expensive live feeds culture, although in

this particular study the comparison was one of

the relative efficacy of live Artemia nauplii and

the more labor-intensive and hence expensive

wild-collected copepod-dominated wild

plank-ton The goal of this study was to determine the

minimum number of days of copepod feeding

needed to obtain optimal growth and survival

Results provide novel insight into the beneficial

effects of inclusion of copepod-intensive wild

plankton even for a short time, although the

downsides of this sort of diet have been

docu-mented here and elsewhere

The final segment of this book, Part V,

Stakeholder Perspectives, includes

contribu-tions from a range of stakeholders—users of

reef resources, consumers, and others who have

an interest in keeping the world's coral reefs

vi-able These chapters are written by participants

in the marine ornamentals dialogue who

repre-sent a specific group or constituency, and in

some cases the presentation differs from the

customary scientific style of presentation

Nevertheless, these contributions are part of the

ongoing discussion, and these groups are

enti-tled to a say in the debate about how to

ap-proach and manage our coral reefs and our

ma-rine ornamentals industry

Public aquariums have traditionally played a

prominent role in elevating consciousness

about conservation issues, and increasingly

they have become fully involved in the process

of developing appropriate technologies both for

reef management and for the aquaculture of

reef species In chapter 23, Hall and Warmolts

outline the role and responsibility of public

aquariums in reef conservation, citing and

de-tailing numerous ongoing initiatives among the

public aquariums that have made public

demonstrations of their research programs,

in-cluding a number of captive culture efforts

Collectively, these programs represent a

signif-icant share of the culture and conservation work

now underway, including studies on the captive

propagation of elasmobranches and jellyfishes

not mentioned elsewhere in this volume In

ad-dition to the scientific role that public

aquari-ums increasingly fulfill, the important

contribu-tion of these institucontribu-tions as educacontribu-tional entities

is emphasized in this chapter

One of the most actively debated topics in

the evaluation of reef-related concerns is the

use of destructive collection practices, such asdynamite fishing and cyanide The extent of thisset of problems is discussed widely—most of-ten in the most highly speculative of terms.Among the only agencies that are approachingthis issue quantitatively—cyanide use in partic-ular—is the International Marinelife Alliancegroup consisting of chapter author Peter Rubecand coworkers Cyanide has unfortunately beenused as a convenient shortcut to obtaining mar-ketable reef fishes, with disregard for its toxici-

ty Consequently, the use of cyanide to collectfish typically results in mortality among many

of the collected fishes along with a share of thenearby fish and invertebrates unintentionallyexposed to this toxic compound Clearly, theeconomic incentive is one of short-term gain atthe expense of reef health Rubec and associateshave set up a sampling and testing procedure inthe Philippines, where this problem has beenespecially acute This program, in place since

1996, has produced data on the presence ofcyanide residues in marine food and aquariumfish exported from the Philippines, includingspecific data on a family-by-family basis Asthis program has grown, the number of fishessampled annually has increased, and the distri-bution of species and families tested has beenundergoing changes Some trends that haveemerged in the patterns of cyanide use are dis-cussed in chapter 24

The driving force in the aquarium trade isconsumer demand; in this industry, the stocking

of home aquariums is the process that has ple scrambling through reefs throughout thetropics to collect fish and invertebrates for ex-port If it were not for the interests of con-sumers, coral reefs might be viewed as just anenvironmental curiosity and would almost cer-tainly not be the subject of such intense collec-tion pressure For this reason, we have includedchapter 25, by Clement, representing the inter-ests and perspectives of Joe Six-Pack, the guywho takes enormous pride in his fish tank, thefellow who desperately wants to use his Visacard to buy some more reef fish Clement pro-vides a rare insight into the mind of the con-sumer, including the desires that drive supplyand demand, as well as the perceptions that willeither make or break MAC certification.Sorting out the multiple and sometimes di-rectly contradictory views of reef use and con-servation is the job of the reef management of-

peo-ficial Providing a lifetime of personal insight

into the management of Florida Keys coral reef

reserves is reef manager Billy Causey, who

pro-vides a long-term view of the trends and

inter-ests that have affected the continuing balance of

reef use and conservation interests Intelligible

management plans must be simple enough for

the lowest common denominator of citizen to

comprehend but must take into account the

bio-logical and health concerns of some 6,000

species of reef inhabitants It is a daunting task,

to say the least, and a compounded series of

compromises, without a doubt Chapter 26

out-lines degrees of conservation protection applied

to reef systems, including the establishment of

sanctuaries, reserves, Special Use Areas, and

Wildlife Management Areas, among other

con-servation tools It is a sensible guide to

agement tools from someone for whom

man-agement is an occupation

The large-scale capture of wild marine

species has been and is likely to remain for at

least the immediate future, the primary source

of animals for the marine aquarium trade In

chapter 27, John Dawes, of the

Nongovern-mental Organization (NGO) OrnaNongovern-mental Fish

International, presents his analysis of the

un-derlying beliefs and assumptions behind the

continuing practice of reef harvesting The

de-sire to breed large numbers of ornamental

species is called into question, and our

techni-cal capability of doing so is also subjected tosome scrutiny The accuracy of figures propa-gated by media sources is challenged and cate-gorized as a "culture of misinformation" by theauthor These and other illustrations of prob-lems in industry perceptions are raised with theintention of supporting the trend favoring con-structive changes in the industry

The perspectives of a second NGO, theConservation and Community InvestmentForum, are represented in the concluding chap-ter (28) by Merkl and coauthors, addressing abusiness-oriented view of the changes takingplace in the marine ornamentals industry Thisgroup seeks to establish a private-sector initiat-

ed reform of the reef fish trade in the Pacific region, with an aim of setting up sus-tainable practices in the place of presentpractices that include exploitative ones Thischapter summarizes observations made during

Indo-a six-week field trip to IndonesiIndo-a, leIndo-ading to theconclusion that Indo-Pacific reefs need a coor-dinated system of protective reform beforereefs have been irreversibly damaged Thischapter follows the money, from consumer tocollector, illustrating the trends that perpetuatedestructive practices and that lead to a disregardfor losses due to mortality This group viewsreef conservation problems as largely financial

in their origin and proposes solutions and form, which also are financially based

re-This page intentionally left blank

PART I

Introduction

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Marine Ornamentals Industry 2001: Priority Recommendations for a

Sustainable Future

John S Corbin, James C Cato, and Christopher L Brown

Introduction

Today's Industry

The marine ornamentals industry around the

world encompasses a broad array of disciplines,

interests, and activities Simply describing the

chain of product distribution (chain of custody)

includes mention of collectors and culturists,

wholesalers and transshippers, distributors and

retailers small and large, and of course

hobby-ists When we add to this the equipment and

supplies manufacturers, government resource

managers and regulators, researchers and

exten-sion agents, educators and public aquariums,

various media and international conservation

organizations, the list of stakeholders in the

fu-ture of the industry becomes daunting

Indeed, as the twenty-first century dawns,

interest in marine ornamentals is growing

rap-idly but perhaps not for the best of reasons

Re-portedly, between 15 and 30 million marine fish

from among approximately 1,000 species enter

the trade every year, though accurate statistics

are lacking (Wood 2001) Hundreds of species

of marine invertebrates are also sold Currently,

as much as 98% of the marine ornamental

species marketed are wild animals collected

from coral reefs, mostly in tropical developing

countries, for example, the Philippines and

In-donesia (Moe 2001; Dawes 2001a) Major

problems with collecting in the wild have been

described by numerous recent reports,

includ-ing the widespread use of chemicals and other

destructive collection methods that damage

coral reefs, negative social and economic

im-pacts on rural coastal communities, and

inade-quate handling and shipping procedures thatcause unnecessary stock mortalities (Baquero1999; Wood 2001; Cruz 2001; Dawes 2001a).Aquacultured sources in the marine orna-mentals trade account for less than 2% of thesupply, and sources of commercial quantities ofproduct have been slow to develop (Moe 2001).The life histories of many economically impor-tant marine reef fish and invertebrates are ex-tremely complex and difficult to control (Zie-mann 2001; Brown 2001) Moreover, themarketplace has yet to appreciate fully the ad-vantages of cultured species over wild-caughtspecies and therefore accept the higher pricescharged (Stime 2001)

The Marine Ornamentals Conference Series

In 1999, a group of state government, versity, and private interests in Hawaii con-ceived and organized an international confer-ence on marine ornamentals to bring togetherfor the first time the diverse components of theindustry for a comprehensive assessment of itsstatus and discussion of the future Delegates to

uni-"Marine Ornamentals '99: Collection, Cultureand Conservation" came from 21 countries andstrived to develop holistically a definitive un-derstanding of the industry, its current chal-lenges, and the actions needed to realize a sus-tainable future in the twenty-first century(Corbin 2001) The conference, held inWaikoloa, Hawaii, November 16-19, 1999, wasunderwritten by the University of Hawaii SeaGrant College Program, with additional spon-

3

1

Part I / Introduction

sorships from sea grant programs in other states

and many organizations in the public and

pri-vate sectors

The success of the first conference led the

Florida Sea Grant College Program at the

Uni-versity of Florida to build on the concept and

organize the second international conference,

"Marine Ornamentals 2001: Collection, Culture

and Conservation" in Orlando, Florida,

Novem-ber 26 to DecemNovem-ber 1, 2001 An outstanding

collection of plenary speakers and paper

ses-sions were presented to an international

audi-ence with representatives from 23 countries

Again, the intent was to bring together all facets

of the marine aquarium industry to identify and

discuss the critical issues that will affect the

broad goal of creating an economically and

en-vironmentally sustainable future for all

stake-holders (see Corbin 2001)

Both conferences were highlighted by

sys-tematic surveying of attendees to identify

im-portant industry issues, gauge concerns, and

de-velop a consensus by voting to prioritize

recommendations for further expansion The

re-sults of the Marine Ornamentals 2001 process

are reported here

Conference Survey Process

Organizers of both meetings desired to take full

advantage of the diversity and depth of the

ex-pertise of hundreds of delegates and create a

fo-rum for dialogue on all manner of critical

in-dustry concerns and problems As a general

approach, attendees were asked to consider the

information they gained during the conference

and their own unique experiences to identify the

issues that are most critical to sustainable

in-dustry expansion in the coming years Then

at-tendees were asked to participate in a process to

recommend specific priority actions and vote

for the most important recommendations

Marine Ornamentals '99 Process

The Marine Ornamentals '99 (MO '99) process

consisted of an ending plenary session in which

delegates, through a facilitated panel and

audi-ence "brainstorming" session, generated 59

rec-ommendations for further consideration These

wide-ranging recommendations were voted on

by attendees in a post-conference balloting to

reduce the number to 20 top priority items

These MO '99 action items encompassed thefollowing categories: (1) government; (2) re-search and education; (3) Marine AquariumCouncil; (4) incentives and certification; (5) re-source management; (6) communication andmarketing, and (7) general industry develop-ment guidelines (Corbin 2001)

Marine Ornamentals 2001 Process

The Marine Ornamentals 2001 (MO 2001)process was similar in concept to MO '99 butdiffered significantly in details of implementa-tion As with the MO '99 survey, suggested is-sues could address any dimension of the indus-try, for example, environmental impacts,industry cooperation and partnerships, socialand cultural concerns, public education andoutreach, international trade, regulation, eco-nomics and marketing, and aquaculture re-search needs Issue items were again framed asindustry recommendations for voting purposes

A three-part survey vehicle was developed tocollect information for use with a novel instan-taneous electronic polling process Part Oneconsisted of nine questions that requested back-ground information on the voter and responsesthat would help plan Marine Ornamentals 2003.Part Two allowed attendees to reprioritize the

20 priority recommendations from MO '99 inHawaii because it was judged that only limitedprogress had been made and most were still im-portant today Part Three allowed attendees tosuggest new recommendations and prioritizethem At an evening facilitated discussion dur-ing the conference, attendees generated the 40new recommendations for consideration, whichwere distributed to all attendees before votingtook place at the end of the conference

Attendee Voting

Collection of background information, PartOne, and voting on the priority recommenda-tions for Part Two and Part Three, were carriedout during the afternoon of the final day of theMarine Ornamentals '01 conference, using anindividualized, proprietary electronic votingsystem that allows instantaneous audiencepolling and immediate projection of results(Padgett Communications, Inc.) Each audiencemember was given an electronic response pad(touch key pad) at his or her seat Questions or

4

lists of recommendations were projected on a

large screen, and audience members were

di-rected through the voting by a facilitator The

number of participants varied from 85 to 92

voters throughout the electronic survey

Electronic voting to determine priority

rec-ommendations was carried out sequentially on

six groups of ten recommendations Groups

One and Two consisted of priority

recommen-dations from MO '99, while Groups Three

through Six consisted of the forty new

recom-mendations generated at MO 2001, which were

randomly assigned to groups of ten

Partici-pants were allowed to choose their top priority

recommendation in each group, in each of three

successive votes, so each audience member had

the opportunity to choose three priorities

An on-site computer then integrated the

three votes to display a single numerical value

for each item and ranked the recommendations

from those receiving the highest value (most

votes) to those receiving the lowest value (least

votes) The top three vote getters from within

each group of ten were considered top priority

for the group and were added to make a total of

18 priority recommendations for MO 2001

This approach to establishing priorities in a

group of participants is known as the N/3

Tech-nique, in which N is the number of items to be

prioritized in each group and the result is the

number of votes given to each person in the

group and the number of priorities to be set

(Ching, University of Hawaii, personal

commu-nication 2001)

Voting Audience Information

Of the nine queries by Part One of the survey,

three were designed to create a statistical

char-acterization of the MO 2001 attendees

Ques-tion 1 asked about the attendee's role in the

in-dustry, that is, (1) aquaculture producer; (2)

research scientist; (3) retailer; (4)

whole-saler/importer; (5) collector; (6) hobbyist; (7)

nongovernmental organization; (8) government

agency; (9) trade association; and (10) other

Results indicated that all role categories

list-ed were representlist-ed in the voting except

whole-saler/importer, suggesting that the conference

goal of bringing together a diverse group of

in-terests was achieved to a significant degree The

group most represented was research scientists

at 35% of voters Next was aquaculture

produc-ers and "other" at 15% each Next were ists and nongovernmental organizations at 11 %each, and then government agencies at 9% Rel-atively minor representation was logged for re-tailers, collectors, and trade associations at 1 %each

hobby-Question 2 asked about the location of theattendee's business or organization Areas listedfor response were: (1) United States; (2) Cana-da; (3) Europe; (4) Middle East; (5) Africa; (6)Asia; (7) Pacific Islands; (8) Caribbean Islands;(9) Central America; and (10) South America

As might be expected, the United States counted for 74% of voters The next highest at-tendance came from Europe at 11 %, with Cana-

ac-da, Pacific Islands, and the Caribbean Islands at3% each Asia had 2%, and the Middle East andSouth America each had 1 % of the voting audi-ence Africa and Central America were not rep-resented Results suggest that conference or-ganizers for MO 2003 need to make a greatereffort to attract marine ornamental interestsfrom outside the United States, though it can bestated that important contemporary source andmarket locations for marine species were wellrepresented at MO 2001

Question 3 asked how long the attendee hadbeen involved in the marine ornamentals indus-try, that is, 5 years or less, 5 to 10 years, 10 to

15 years, 15 to 20 years, and more than 20years Results indicate that all levels of industryexperience were represented in the voting At-tendees who had the least involvement made up

to 45% of the audience, while 10, 15, and 20years or less experience accounted for 18%,16%, and 7%, respectively Those people whohad the longest involvement in the industry ac-counted for 12% of the voting audience Dataindicate that a broad cross section of experiencewas present at the conference and for the vot-ing

Priority Recommendations from

MO 2001

The 18 top priority recommendations selected

by the voting audience were grouped for cussion purposes under six headings: (1) re-source management and product certification;(2) research and public/private partnerships; (3)formal and hobbyist education; (4) marketing;(5) enhanced communication; and (6) future

dis-Part I / Introduction

conferences Priorities are presented and

dis-cussed below Because the voting database can

identify patterns of individual voters, comments

will also be made on patterns of voting based on

the participant's role in the industry,

geograph-ic location, and time spent in the industry

Resource Management and

Product Certification Priority

Rec-ommendations

• Develop reliable trade and biological data

for marine ornamentals

• The Marine Aquarium Council (MAC)

should promote methods that allow a

dis-tinction between cultured and wild-caught

marine ornamentals in the marketplace

• The marine ornamentals industry should

adopt the goal of sustainably producing a

quality product at affordable prices

Discussion: Data availability and

sustainabil-ity of producing qualsustainabil-ity products are continuing

concerns of industry members The adequacy

and reliability of available trade and scientific

data to manage and conserve coral reef

re-sources is perceived as unsatisfactory, though

the situation is improving with the recent

devel-opment of a Global Marine Aquarium Data

Base by the United Nations Environmental

Pro-gram, World Conservation Monitoring Centre,

and the Marine Aquarium Council (Lem 2001;

Green 2001)

Notably MAC, formed in 1998 to address

various problems with sourcing and distribution

in the industry, unveiled its logo at the 2001

conference and announced that the logo would

be used in the launch of its program of product

certification Plans call for encouraging

wide-spread certification of the components of the

chain of custody so that consumers can have a

means of supporting businesses that operate in

an environmentally sensitive and sustainable

way (Bunting 2001)

Eventually, sustainable cultured species

sources will also be certified (Holthus 2001)

Affordability by the hobbyist of higher priced,

sustainably produced, and certified products

re-mains a major impediment, however, as

indicat-ed by many discussions during the conference

It can be said, however, that the long-term goal

of utilization of sustainable collection, culture,

and handling practices throughout the marine

ornamentals industry clearly had strong supportfrom attendees (for example, see Smith 2001)

Research and Public/Private ship Priority Recommendations

Partner-• Investigate mechanisms for the scientificcommunity and the marine ornamentals in-dustry to partner on research in order to ac-celerate scientific progress

• International and federal research fundingsources should give the highest priority toprojects involving the advancement of ma-rine ornamentals aquaculture and reef pres-ervation, and this recommendation should beforwarded to all appropriate organizations

• Develop and publicize standardized proaches to spawning and rearing more ma-rine ornamental fish species

ap-• Develop a priority list of research topics onmarine ornamentals for public funding or-ganizations

• MAC should provide a clearinghouse forsources of funding (i.e., grants) available tohobbyists, students, and so on

Discussion: Attendees at MO 2001 strongly

endorsed the need for accelerated research onthe biology and culture of marine aquariumspecies and the ecology and management ofcoral reef environments around the world Themajority of marine life supplies to the market-place will come from wild-caught sources forthe foreseeable future, so proper management isnecessary to maintain the reef resources(Dawes 200 1b) Moreover, bottlenecks to com-mercial-scale culture of economically impor-tant species abound, as evidenced by the limit-

ed numbers and variety of cultured speciescurrently coming to market (Moe 2003).Several speakers addressed common bottle-necks to culture (e.g., Moe 2003; Holt 2001).Controlled spawning and first feeding, whenmarine larvae convert from absorption of theiryolk sacs to exogenous feeds, was highlighted

as a crucial area for increased effort (Holt 2001;Laidley 2001) The design of hatchery rearingsystems suitable for mass rearing of small anddelicate marine larvae also needs more work(Holt 2001) Disease diagnosis and manage-ment were highlighted as another major area fortargeted research dollars (Stoskopf 2001; Moe2003)

6

It was suggested that much greater progress

could be made if scientists and industry

mem-bers cooperated on identifying critical areas of

research and carrying out specific projects

Moreover, the marine ornamentals industry

needs to determine and publicize its research

priorities to national and international funding

sources in government and the nonprofit,

con-servation sector, but there is currently no

for-mally organized entity charged with this task

To some extent, the series of Marine

Ornamen-tals meetings has defined a de facto body of

concerned individuals that has assumed this

role This group has identified as a priority the

establishment of a centralized clearinghouse of

information to allow hobbyists, students, and

others interested in marine ornamentals

re-search to find funding so these groups could

pursue their own ideas or join with others to

ex-pand the overall effort

Formal and Hobbyist Education

Priority Recommendations

• Promote mechanisms to transfer technical

information from the scientist to the

hobby-ist

• Develop formal education programs at the

undergraduate and graduate levels in marine

ornamentals aquaculture and aquarium

sci-ence

Discussion: A clear message from the

previ-ous marine ornamentals conference carried

over to MO 2001, namely that hobbyists and

others in the industry need open access to more

and better information to increase sustainable

sources and the number of marketable species

(Brown 2001) Whereas a number of university

scientists, a few trade magazines, and an

assort-ment of public aquariums are doing excellent

jobs in information transfer and public

educa-tion, it is widely perceived that a more focused

effort to share information between marine

or-namentals researchers and hobbyists is needed

to advance the industry Further, as the

aquacul-ture component expands and greater numbers

of marine hobbyists are fostered, a significant

effort is needed to create formal educational

op-portunities at colleges and universities to

im-prove the skill of commercial culturists and

hobbyists

Marketing Priority Recommendations

• The marine ornamentals industry must velop a greater consumer demand for fishaquacultured and/or collected in a sustain-able manner

de-• The marine ornamentals industry should courage the notion that aquacultured animalsand plants are bred to be better adapted to theaquarium environment and therefore havehigher value

en-• The marine ornamentals industry should cept and endorse sustainable collection andsustainable cultured sources and adopt a pol-icy of expanding the market for both sourcestogether

ac-Discussion Attendees at MO 2001

recog-nized that the implementation of sustainablecollection and culture practices for variousspecies and certification of sustainably pro-duced products to harness market forces (eco-labeling), will mean these products cost more

in the marketplace than stock from aged, wild-caught, and sometimes exploitativesources Increasing consumer acceptance forhigher priced, sustainably produced productswill be key to product acceptance and reducingpressures on wild stocks (Spalding 2001; Hoff2001) In particular, discussions indicated mar-ket advantages of cultured products—for ex-ample, predictable supply, increased qualityand survival, and predictable size, finage, andcoloration—need to be emphasized in the mar-ketplace Attendees suggested that much indus-trywide discussion needs to occur to adopt apolicy of comarketing sustainably collectedand cultured products, but efforts by MAC aremoving rapidly in the right direction and werestrongly endorsed by attendees (Bunting2001)

unman-Enhanced Communication Priority Recommendations

• Develop mechanisms to disseminate cultureinformation for marine ornamentals species(new and old), such as a centralized informa-tion base

• Establish a website for global interests inmarine ornamentals to exchange scientificand nonscientific information on breeding,species biology, economics, and so on

Part I / Introduction

• Develop mechanisms and linkages for

com-munication and information exchange

be-tween the marine ornamentals community

and the zoological and public aquarium

com-munities

Discussion: Enhancing communication among

and between marine ornamentals interests was a

recurring theme of discussions at the conference

Centralizing marine ornamentals information

in-to readily accessible electronic databases and

de-velopment of one or more interactive websites

for hobbyists to exchange information were

em-phasized as important needs Apparently,

exist-ing web resources are more focused on the

freshwater portion of the hobby, and

opportuni-ties exist to better serve marine enthusiasts

The plenary presentation on the role of

pub-lic aquariums in the conservation and

sustain-ability of the marine ornamentals trade was

par-ticularly well received (Hall and Warmolts

2001) As stated, public aquariums are a highly

visible component of the trade and have a large

responsibility to encourage and support

sustain-able resource use They do so today through a

variety of efforts, from individual institutional

projects to multi-institutional global programs,

such as Project Seahorse Brief exposure at MO

2001 to the diversity of activities of the world's

public aquariums with marine ornamental and

reef conservation programs clearly left

atten-dees wanting to know how to engage this

net-work of scientists and educators for greater

communication and information exchange

Priority Recommendations

for Future Conferences

• More governmental agencies, retailers, and

international representatives should be

in-volved in the discussions at MO 2003

• The MO 2003 conference should have more

sessions on culture

Discussion: The last priority

recommenda-tions address some desired improvements to

fu-ture conferences, though evaluations at both

MO '99 and MO 2001 were quite favorable

At-tendees suggested that a greater number of

rep-resentatives from government agencies, the

re-tail sector, and international organizations

would enhance the discussions at the next

con-ference Survey results generally support this

notion because government, retail, and tional groups were clearly under-represented at

interna-MO 2001 It was also emphasized that interna-MO

2003 conference organizers should considerways to increase the number and quality of ses-sions on marine ornamentals culture, whichshould be easily accommodated because re-search efforts around the world are increasing.Strong support for the expansion of commercialculture was heard during the entire conference

Conclusions

The marine ornamentals industry is faced with

a host of complex environmental, economic, cial, cultural, and political issues on an interna-tional scale Ultimately, survival of the hobbyand sustainability of the livelihoods of millions

so-of people are at stake

MO 2001 was highly successful in providing

a forum for discussing the variety of complexissues facing the industry today and decidingwhat to do about them Plenary and paper ses-sions included 70 presentations by attendeesfrom 21 different countries An excellent cross-section of industry components and experienceswas present, as evidenced by the range of re-sults of the survey on attendee role in the in-dustry, location of the organization, and years

of experience with marine ornamentals issues

It is clear, however, that organizers of MO 2003and future conferences should strive for a morebalanced and diverse mix of involved organiza-tions

The 18 industry priorities rising to the top ofattendee concerns touched on six general areas:(1) resource management and product certifica-tion; (2) research and public/private partner-ships; (3) formal and hobbyist education; (4)marketing; (5) enhanced communication; and(6) future conferences The recommendationsprovide both near-term and long-term directionfor the efforts of industry proponents to expand.The priority solicitation and voting process in

MO 2001 was a marked improvement over MO'99, with twice the participation, but processimprovement and consensus building should beongoing goals for future organizers Further,conference organizers hope and encourage allcomponents of the marine ornamentals industry

to review these results and incorporate the ority action items into their short-term andlong-term strategic plans Lastly, readers are8

pri-encouraged to look for notification of future

conferences in the continuing series and are

al-so urged to attend in order to share ideas and

participate in successfully guiding the industry

forward

References

Baquero, Jaime 1999 Marine Ornamentals Trade,

Quality and Sustainability for the Pacific Region.

South Pacific Forum, May 1999, 52 pp.

Brown, Stanley 2001 Information exchange and

captive propagation In Proceedings of Marine

Or-namentals 99, University of Hawaii Sea Grant

College Program, pp 9-12.

Bunting, Bruce 2001 Buy a fish, buy a coral, save a

reef: The importance of economic incentives to

sustain conservation In Marine Ornamentals

2001, Program and Abstracts, University of

Flori-da Sea Grant College Program, pp 3-4.

Corbin, John S 2001 Marine Ornamentals 99,

con-ference highlights and priority recommendations.

Aquarium Sciences and Conservation, Vol 3, No.

1-3, pp 3-11.

Cruz, Ferdinand P 2001 Supplying the demand for

sustainability: Stories from the field In Marine

Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts,

Uni-versity of Florida Sea Grant College Program, pp.

13-14.

Dawes, John 2001a Resource management and

reg-ulation: Current status and future trends In

Pro-ceedings of Marine Ornamentals 99, University of

Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, pp 21-32.

Dawes, John 2001b Wild-caught marines and the

or-namental aquatic industry In Marine Oror-namentals

2001, Program and Abstracts, University of

Florida Sea Grant College Program, p 15.

Green, Edmund 2001 Separating fish facts from

fishy fiction (not forgetting invertebrates) In

Ma-rine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts,

University of Florida Sea Grant College Program,

pp 16-17.

Hall, Heather, and Douglas Warmolts 2001 The role

of public aquaria in the conservation and

sustain-ability of the marine ornamental trade In Marine

Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts,

Uni-versity of Florida Sea Grant College Program,

p 18.

Hoff, Frank 2001 Future of marine ornamental fish

culture In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program

and Abstracts, University of Florida Sea Grant

College Program, p 55.

Holt, G Joan 2001 Research on culturing the early

life stages of marine ornamental species In rine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, University of Florida Sea Grant College Program,

Ma-pp 19-20.

Holthus, Paul 2001 From reef to retail: Marine namental certification for sustainability is here In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Ab- stracts, University of Florida Sea Grant College Program, pp 21-23.

or-Laidley, Charles W 2001 Captive reproduction of yellow tang and pygmy angel fishes at the Ocean-

ic Institute In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, University of Florida Sea Grant College Program, pp 60-62.

Lem, Audun 2001 International trade in ornamental fish In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, University of Florida Sea Grant College Program, p 26.

Moe, Martin A 2001 Marine ornamentals: The dustry and the hobby In Proceedings of Marine Ornamentals 99, University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, pp 53-63.

in-Moe, Martin A 2003 Culture of marine tals: For love, for money, and for science In Ma- rine Ornamental Species: Collection, Culture, and Conservation Ed J.C Cato and C.L Brown Ames: Iowa State Press.

ornamen-Smith, Walt 2001 Responsibilities for collection and opportunities in aquaculture for developing coun- tries through the marine aquarium trade In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, Uni- versity of Florida Sea Grant College Program, pp 167-168.

Spalding, Sylvia 2001 Creating consumer demand for MAC certified marine ornamentals In Marine Ornamentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, Uni- versity of Florida Sea Grant College Program, p 134.

Stime, Jim Jr 2001 Hobbyist perspectives, formed or blissfully naive? In Proceedings of Ma- rine Ornamentals 99, University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, pp 73-78.

unin-Stoskopf, Michael K 2001 Current issues in disease control in marine ornamentals In Marine Orna- mentals 2001, Program and Abstracts, University

of Florida Sea Grant College Program, p 31 Wood, Elizabeth 2001 Global advances in conserva- tion and management of marine ornamentals re-

sources Aquarium Sciences and Conservation,

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Culture of Marine Ornamentals: For Love, for Money, and for Science

Martin A Moe, Jr.

Introduction

The hobby of keeping marine aquariums and

the associated industries of marine ornamental

organism collection, captive culture, aquarium

product manufacture, distribution, and

whole-sale and retail trade have changed and grown

rapidly in the past 15 years The engine of this

growth and change is the developing ability of

hobbyists and small, captive propagation

busi-nesses to maintain and culture living corals in

small marine aquarium systems The growth of

this hobby/industry in coral keeping has also

stimulated the collection and propagation of

other aquarium organisms such as fish, live

rock, live sand, and a wide variety of

inverte-brate animals Strong environmental concerns

about the sustainability of wild stocks of

col-lected organisms have also developed as marine

live animal collection and trade have expanded

and as environmental and anthropogenic

stress-es on tropical marine ecosystems have greatly

increased

Hobbyists are growing corals almost as a

gardener grows flowers, and small commercial

coral culture businesses are developing in all

ar-eas of the United States and in other countries

as well Increasing market value, the concerns

about increasing restrictions on collection of

wild stocks, and new successes in the culture of

marine ornamental fish are stimulating the

in-terest and efforts of commercial breeders,

pub-lic aquariums, and scientists, as well as

hobby-ists, in the culture of marine ornamental

organisms The accelerating growth of

biologi-cal understanding, and the technology that this

knowledge has spawned, is rapidly changing

the social and economic structure of the hobby

These changes and developments, although

in-tuitively understood by hobbyists and

profes-sionals, are graphically expressed in this ter using results from a survey conducted dur-ing the last half of 2001

chap-The motivations, attitudes, concerns, andpractices of hobbyists, commercial breeders,and scientists who culture marine ornamentalsmay differ greatly, but the roots of these en-deavors are parallel It is important to know thediverse interests, efforts, successes, failures,and attitudes of those engaged in these pursuits

to understand the present and plan for the future

of the ornamental marine life hobby and try The survey on the culture of marine orna-mentals prepared for the Marine Ornamentals

indus-2001 conference attempts to collect and analyzethis basic information through a questionnairedistributed to hobbyists, scientists, and com-mercial breeders all over the world

By mid-November 2001, 408 hobbyists, entists, and commercial breeders had responded

sci-to the questionnaire Although the survey wasnot designed to reach a statistical sample from

a known population of hobbyists, scientists, andcommercial breeders, the results provide in-sight into the state of culture in the marine hob-by/industry at this time The questions were de-signed to provide information on the organismsthat have been cultured successfully and thosewhose culture has been attempted and failed Itfocused on the organisms that provide the bestreturn for commercial culture and those whosesuccessful culture is most desired but not possi-ble at this time A total of 325 hobbyists re-ported on the organisms that they most fre-quently propagate and what they do withhome-bred marine ornamentals The attitudes

of hobbyists toward culture and the hobby itselfare also explored Thirty-four commercialbreeders reported on the status of their business,11

2

12 Part 1 / Introduction

on their greatest difficulties, and the organisms

with which they are most financially successful

Forty-nine scientists reported on their sources

of funding, the organisms they are working

with now, those they have worked with in the

past, and those that they have successfully

propagated Their failures are also reported, as

is the basic purpose of their research

Development, Distribution,

and Analysis of the Survey

Questionnaire

The questionnaire was composed of 31

tions divided into three sections The first

ques-tion identified the respondent as a hobbyist, a

commercial breeder, or as a scientist or

profes-sional aquarist The hobbyist was directed to

questions 2 through 10, the commercial

breed-er to questions 11 through 20, and the

scien-tist/professional aquarist to questions 21

through 31 Thus, each individual respondent

had only about 10 questions to answer, and the

questionnaire could be completed fairly

quick-ly The questions in each category were

de-signed to provide some insight into the scope of

activities, motivations, attitudes, successes,

fail-ures, and financial importance of the culture

ef-forts of respondents in each category Although

most of the questions required single or

multi-ple responses, there was also ammulti-ple

opportuni-ty for expanded expression of ideas, attitudes,

and opinions

The questionnaire was distributed almost

ex-clusively by computer through the Internet

from April through November of 2001

Re-spondents were solicited from hobbyist bulletin

boards, marine aquarium clubs and societies,

professional aquarist organizations,

commer-cial web sites, and through personal email

re-quests A total of 408 individuals responded to

the questionnaire, including hobbyists (325),

commercial breeders (34), and

scientists/pro-fessional aquarists (49)

Most of the questions required the

respon-dent to choose one or more answers, but

sever-al questions in each section asked for a list of

organisms or a comment Thus, compilation of

the results required that data be collected and

tallied from each questionnaire, as well as

com-pilation of the responses from questions

requir-ing comment

Many of the questions elicited a multiple sponse; the respondents often chose two ormore of the options presented for a single ques-tion It was important that the percentage of re-sponse to each answer represented the number

re-of individuals choosing that answer rather thanthe percentage of distribution of all the answers

to that particular question Therefore, the centage of response reported for each option isthe percentage of respondents who chose thatanswer and not the percentage of the total re-sponse that that answer elicited For example,question 10 in the hobbyist section had six pos-sible answers Respondents were encouraged toselect all the choices with which they were inagreement There were 1,157 responses from

per-324 respondents Of the per-324 respondents, 260selected choice A as one of their options The

260 responses to choice A represented only22% of the total 1,157 responses However, ofthe 324 hobbyists who responded to this ques-tion, 260, representing 80% of the respondents,selected choice A as one of their answers to thisquestion So the correct interpretation of the da-

ta is that 80% of the hobbyists responding to thequestionnaire supported the work of the MarineAquarium Council (choice A) Thus, the per-centage analyses for those questions with mul-tiple responses were reported as a percentage ofthe respondents answering that question

The Hobbyist Response:

Those Who Culture for Love

Table 2.1 presents data recovered from the 324respondents to the hobbyist section of the ques-tionnaire The survey questions and the answerselections are abbreviated in this table

Questions 2 through 10 pertained to ists There were 325 responses from hobbyistsfrom all over the world, mostly from the UnitedStates Not all respondents answered all ques-tions In the hobbyist questionnaire, all questionsexcept number 2 elicited multiple answers frommost respondents The responses covered therange of intensity of effort in this hobby, all theway from the casual aquarist, to those to whom

hobby-the word obsession just might be applicable.

Question 2 functioned to separate hobbyistsinto three groups—those who do nothing extra

to propagate marine organisms (20%), thosewho actively propagate marine organisms but

Table 2.1 Hobbyist questionnaire results

Question and response data

B Minimal culture effort

C Strong culture effort

Disposal of cultured organisms

318 respondents (no multiple responses)

A Give to other hobbyists

B Sell to other hobbyists

C Do not produce excess organisms

Major problems in culture of marine organisms

B Abandon culture efforts

C A current source of income

D An anticipated source of income

Attitude toward purchase of cultured organisms

324 respondents (383 responses)

A No concern for cultured vs wild

B Buy cultured organisms when possible

C Request cultured organisms

D Buy only cultured organisms

Issues and opinions

324 respondents (1157 responses)

A Support the Marine Aquarium Council

B Support improvement, doubt success

C Favor legislation

D Favor voluntary efforts

E Feel that culture is necessary

F Feel that wild collection is necessary

Responses to each option

64 177 83

151 107 60

17 145 159 102 28

261 7 26 78

51 210 101 21

260 161 136 230 236 134

Percent of respondents choosing each option

20 55 26

47 34 19

5 45 49 31 9

80 2 8 24

16 65 31 6

80 50 42 71 73 41

on a casual basis (55%), and those who make a

strong effort at propagation (26%) The results

indicated that a large number of hobbyists,

81%, now propagate marine organisms, and

about 26% make a serious effort at propagation

This indicates that the biomass of captive

ma-rine organisms, mostly corals, that resides in

hobbyists' tanks is growing rapidly The

grow-ing availability of cultured marine organisms,

mostly corals, now present and growing rapidly

within the hobby without dependence on wildcollection or typical avenues of commercialdistribution also signals widespread and funda-mental changes occurring within the hobby.Question 3 was designed to learn a littleabout the economics of the hobby at the level ofthe hobbyist Of the 318 hobbyists who an-swered that question, 60 indicated that theyboth gave away and sold excess organisms toother hobbyists The purpose of the question