What Has Happened To Our Coral Reefs?

by Garrett Murphy
Aquarium Fish Monthly 2/12/2003

            Everybody in this world has seen, at one time or another, a Jacques Cousteou undersea special.  Many of these people, upon viewing the myriad of colors to be found on the fish and corals, want to set up something of the sort in their own home.  Unfortunately, most attempts at bringing the splendor of the coral reef home end in despair and heartbreak when the fish and the corals begin to founder.  The reason has always been a debate among hobbyists, for freshwater fish are so easy to care for, and yet, marine fish and corals are almost impossible to keep alive.  Reasons that have been brought to light as of late, which exporters and importers consider rubbish, are that the trapping methods used to acquire these creatures actually damage them and the reef environment surrounding them upon capture.  Most importers and exporters have proclaimed themselves innocent of all charges, instead putting the blame on uneducated fishkeepers and man’s inability to control pollution.  However, both agree that the reefs are disappearing at an alarming rate.  Of course, everybody’s reaction has been to point elsewhere; yet, much of the damage seems to have a common root:  people.  For example, between 1917 and 1920, Alfred Mayor, a biologist, surveyed the reefs of Pago Pago, Samoa, and found them to be “‘luxurious.’”  Next, an airport was extended into the lagoon, using reef material to build it.  Now, poisons and dynamite have been used to capture fish, and people routinely dump trash into the bay.  By the late 70’s, when research was begun in Pago Pago, only two areas of reef remained healthy; the rest were either completely gone or badly damaged (Wells 40).  A study done a few years ago showed that 75% of the Philippine reefs were “in only poor to fair condition”; similarly, off Costa Rica, about 80% are thought to be dead (Golden 28).  Even with the evidence to the contrary, the marine exporters and importers have vehemently denied responsibility for the damage, blaming it instead on such environmental occurrences as global warming and oceanic pollution.  As the primary denizens of the planet, humankind has a responsibility to make certain that their influence does not harm the earth, of which the reefs are a major component.  It is only through finding a middle ground in which both sides may join together and attempt to halt the destruction of the reefs and their denizens by passing and enforcing laws that will end unethical trapping methods that have had such a damaging effect on the reef environments and make an attempt to save them.

            Since most people do not fully comprehend the necessity of the earth having full and healthy reefs, it is necessary to explain some of the current and potential uses of the reef.  They serve as natural breakwaters, saving small islands such as the Philippines and the Hawaiian Islands from erosion.  The actual reef structures convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, and act as gigantic bacterial filters to remove harmful substances from the oceans.  In the future, the many chemicals present in the different fishes and invertebrates are certain to reveal multiple uses for them, as evidenced by past experiments with natural tranquilizers (Wallace 80), cancer treatments (Wallace 80, Wells 47), anti-inflammatories (Wallace 80) and even bone grafts (Wells 49).  Therefore, it should be a priority in everybody’s minds to save these creatures before we never are able to utilize these properties!

            One of the primary defenses held by the collectors of these animals has always been to blame it on the environment, instead of themselves.  While it is true that there are several environmental effects that humans are responsible for, it is only a half-truth to absolve all blame from themselves.  The environmental effects, primarily the dumping of cesspit leachate and phosphate grass fertilizers into the ocean which causes massive algal growths along the sea floor and subsequent nose-dives in shellfish populations, are usually the type of thing that the ocean can bounce back from fairly quickly (Butler 14).  Leaded gas emissions once were highly damaging, but the conversion to mostly unleaded fuels has given the reefs a chance to filter out the effects of the lead on their own (14).  Building on the coast line near reefs has also shown to have some effects on the reef by encouraging runoff, and the sediment then drifts and collects in the nooks and crannies of the reef, clogging corals, and killing them (Golden 27).  This has been seen to cause mass destruction, most easily noticed during the 1940’s construction of an airport in Castle Harbor, Bermuda, where the entire brain coral population is still struggling today (Butler 14).  Unfortunately, these are not the worst of the problems.

            The worst thing to defile the reef has been the fish trapping industry.  For years, people have been attempting to take the reef environment home and put it into a tank in the corner of their family room.  They enter a world that they do not understand, and neither do the people selling them.  After putting them in the tank, usually, the animals die.  The reasons for this are obvious:  the animals are sold to the customer already damaged, and they require forms of care that the hobbyist cannot provide yet.  The aquarium industry is an extremely powerful force, with retail sales of $4 billion annually and approximately 22 million owners in the US alone (McLarney 48); thus, the first attempts at reform should come from within.

            Of the many different destructive trapping methods, the one most used is cyanide fishing.  The trapper dissolves sodium cyanide, a very accessible substance in either powder or tablet form, in water, and then squirts it out of some form of sport bottle.  Some collectors, to be more frugal, use straight chlorine (Golden 25).  Either way, the result is the same:  dead fish.  The cloud of the chemical not only stuns the fish, but it then destroys most of the invertebrates, namely the reef itself, that surrounds the fish.  It also instantly kills coralline algae that is necessary for reef survival in a symbiotic nature.

            The amount of cyanide pumped into reefs off the Philippines alone has been estimated to be 150 tons every year (Golden 29).  Bear in mind that it is illegal to use cyanide in the Philippines, showing the effectiveness of the current laws.  Proponents of cyanide usage defend the amount used in the Philippines by proclaiming that a thousand fishers among the several thousand miles of reef cannot seriously cause lasting harm, but only small patches of bleaching that are “quickly” healed up (Golden 27).  This is another fine example of “A Tragedy of the Commons.”  The fishers themselves even claim that some fish cannot even be captured without cyanide.  The Philippines, the worst offender against the many international laws that ban cyanide fishing, is also by far the largest volume exporter of fish in the world.  It is known that, of all marine animals sold in the world, 99% of them are wild caught, with the Philippines contributing between 50% and 80% (Derr 54; Golden 24).  The use of cyanide to catch fish has led to some very disturbing statistics about the survival of these fish.  Up to 75% of all captured fish die instantaneously, and multitudes of the larval young die in the lingering cyanide cloud.  Almost half die in transit to Manila, then another third is lost in holding there, along with another third by the time they reach the sales floor.  A little math shows that this equates to a 6% survival rate (Golden 25).  In 1985, Elizabeth Wood told the Marine Conservation Society that almost two-thirds of captured Sri Lankan fish put into tanks died within 6 months, and it is thought to be fairly close with other countries as well.  In the estimation of Frederic Golden, a writer for Sea Frontiers magazine, “For every fish that makes it safely from reef to aquarist’s tank, 20 or more have been sacrificed to get it there” (25). Even with these problems, the practice of cyanide trapping has spread into Indonesia, which has become a major new supplier of marine fish. 

            Obviously, if the trapping of these fish alone causes so much destruction, why then have the trappers not switched to less destructive methods?  Part of the problem is that many cyanide-suppliers claim that there is no proof that cyanide does kill reefs (McLarney 50).  Even the ones that do feel that cyanide destroys coral play the blind man, such as Andy Eyas:  “‘I would safely say that that 80% of all fish [in the Philippines] are caught by nets.’”  Other sources at the time say the exact opposite:  that 80% of all the fish were caught using cyanide (McLarney 48).  McLarney also tells a personal story about how the fish collector, when time comes for an inspection, brings the visitor out on a boat with nets on it to catch the powder brown tang, a very high finned, easy-to-catch fish, and they show their inspector the large hauls they obtain, cyanide free.  Naturally, the moment they drop off the official on the shore, the cyanide is brought out and used to catch all the other hard-to-catch fish (48).  Steve Robinson, an expert in the field of net-trapping, traveled to the Philippines in 1982 and made his way into the trust of the local fishers, who “show[ed him] the ropes” of cyanide fishing (McLarney 50).  Robinson insists that all fish can be caught safely with nets and some practice, so he set about training the fishers themselves.  Unfortunately, there was much resistance, as most of the fishermen refused to believe that they could consistently bring in hauls that compared with those caught with cyanide.

            There are some other trapping methods in use that are also damaging and unethical.  One, technique, as horrible as it may sound, that is catching on in the Philippines and other third world nations is “dynamite fishing,” the completely non-selective dropping of explosives in the water.  All the hard work involved in this practice is the netting up of the stunned fish afterward (Golden 27).  The fisher never even goes underwater to see the results of his craft.  According to Golden, however, the most devastating method is what is called “muro-ami,” translated from Japanese to mean “thumping fish."  This is a practice wherein 50-300 fishers approaches the reef with large weights, which they pound the reef with to spook the fish out of hiding and into a large net.  As one would assume, the damage done to the reef by striking it is very intensive (27).

            One problem many aquarists are not aware of is the amount of coral that is being removed from the reefs.  Here, it is not only the aquarium industry, but third world countries that use the limestone and bony corals of the reef to strengthen cement.  However, it still seems to be the hobbyist that causes the most damage.  Even when coral is healthy and undamaged, survival is extremely low.  Jaime Baquero, a Canadian marine biologist, studied the survival rate of stony corals kept in closed systems and says that it is close to nil (Derr 53).  The reason is that corals are accustomed to nutrient poor surroundings, and these conditions are impossible to provide in an aquarium environment.  I learned the best way to keep corals alive from a Sea World employee last year.  When I looked at their beautiful, healthy corals, I had to ask how they kept them so well.  I was brought behind the scenes, to the rear of the tank, and it was only then that I realized that the coral I was looking at was molded plastic, and the employee admitted that their scientists had tried and tried to duplicate the conditions necessary for survival, but they never succeeded.  Therefore, the best way to keep the corals alive is to leave them in the ocean, where they belong.  But, aquarists do not seem willing to admit defeat and continue trying.

            One piece of a marine aquarium that people use and is actually beneficial is called live rock.  Live rocks are chunks of limestone, either broken off the reef or collected from the ocean floor, that harbor copious amounts of bacteria, algae and invertebrates.  These, just like in the wild, act as filtration in reef tanks by using the bacteria to break down the wastes.  The only problem is that it takes two pounds per gallon of water for it to effectively filter the water, and as a 55 gallon tank tends to be the norm, the amount removed from the oceans must add up to an extremely large amount.  One store in Florida alone claims to need 50 tons of live rock per year (Derr 51).  The owner of this store, Jeff Turner, claims that the collection of live rock is not harming anything, because it is all loose rock that has fallen off the reef and would be slowly eroded away by the tide, anyway (Scopes 24).  But the amounts being removed hint that it is a lot more than just the loose debris on the ocean floor.  In 1989, it was estimated that over three tones were being shipped out of Miami International Airport daily (Derr 50)!

            So what could be a solution to these problems?  One step was taken in 1990, when the IMA created the Netsman project to instruct the Philippine fishers how to use safe net trapping methods (Golden 29).  Naturally, the person they turned to was none other than Steve Robinson.  He took a crew of personnel over to the Philippines and had a very successful time training the fishers how to net-trap their targets.  After he left, however, very few of the exporters were willing to resupply the fishers with nets, instead trying to persuade them to go back to cyanide use (Robinson 69-70).  Robinson sent a representative of Technets of Osaka to meet with the head of the Philippine Tropical Fish Exporters Association in order to offer them nets at a price that would be one-thirtieth of the cost of cyanide, but was turned away.  The exporters had decided to train the fishers with “gill nets,” which work much less efficiently than the monofiliment netting they were originally trained to work with, reinforcing the opinion that cyanide was better than nets.  To save the reefs, it is imperative that, somehow, another version of this project must be started again, and then somebody else besides the exporter should be responsible for supplying the future nets.  American importers so far have not done much to solve this situation because, as Robinson feels, the Americans do not want to admit having been involved in such “illegitimate, criminal practices” (Robinson 72).

            The Philippines should just take a look at how Hawaii handles their marine fish trapping.  Hawaii’s reefs are minuscule in comparison to the Philippines.  They also have only one-tenth the variety of species.  Yet, 100 collectors, using nets, make their living off it by dividing the reef into individual sections for each diver, who go through their section, bit by bit, and when reaching the end, go back and start over at the beginning (McLarney 51).  Another alternative would be the use of quinaldine, an anesthetic that is legal for use in Florida.  So far, it has not been shown to have any side effects; it just knocks the fish unconscious.  Most collectors report 100% survival rate with this.

            However, what is needed most is to pass and enforce laws limiting what can be done to the reefs.  The enforcement part is stressed because there have been several laws (such as the international laws and those in the Philippines) already passed to protect marine wildlife that are just circumvented.  The 1972 Bermuda Fisheries Act, for example, was completely ineffective, so in 1990 sterner steps were taken (Butler 7).  Even when these were enacted, fishermen were able to break the law worry free because they could easily use other fishers’ ID numbers (no identification cards were issued; just numbers to give inspectors), and even if caught, the fine was so small that it was no more than an inconvenience (25).  The United States has a law, called the Lacey Act, which states that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is allowed to confiscate any illegally captured animals, but they have never been able to halt the shipments of cyanide dosed fish because they come to the Us.  With the official certification of “cyanide free” by the Philippine government, which does not even have an accurate test to determine if cyanide has been used (26).  Basically, it looks as if only two laws passed have actually had any effect.  In Germany, since 1987, the “importation and sale of butterfly fish, angelfish, lampreys and Moorish idols, [all very fragile species noted for short lives in aquaria]” have been banned, along with certain corals and clams (Derr 56).  In Florida, the harvest of live rock has been halted; after 75 tons were collected in 1994, it officially became illegal to remove live rock anywhere in the legal jurisdiction of Florida.  Unfortunately, this law shows its effectiveness in this month’s version of Freshwater and Marine Aquarium magazine, where four ads can be seen touting the availability of Florida live rock.

            Laws that must be passed should all result in stiff penalties that will make the profit no longer exceed the possible punishment.  Fines do not seem to be enough; only jail time appears to actually affect anybody, though tacking on a fine as well would be a good idea, with the money going to breeding and restocking programs for the reef.  One law that must definitely be passed would have to be a law making it illegal to carry any toxic chemicals over a reef.  If they are not allowed to have them in the boat at all, then it can avoid any problems with the fishers coming up with simple explanations for their presence.  The penalty here should also include a lifetime ban from being allowed to trap.  Dynamite fishing should be met with a long prison sentence to make a demonstration against anything this harmful, and muro-ami should have the same punishment.  The aquarium stores that sell such damaged fish should also be punished, either with steep fines or even with closure.  In other words, somebody has to put their foot down to halt this destruction.

            Upon walking into any saltwater fish store, one will be confronted with the thousands of colors that he or she can bring home.  However, he or she will also be faced with a decision:  should I frequent a store that caters to the destruction of the environment?  When I went into every saltwater fish store here in the Valley and asked them if they get any fish from the Philippines or any that have been caught with cyanide, every answer was, “No.”  Now, viewing the evidence presented, and knowing that at least half of the fish sold in the US are from the Philippines, the law of averages says that at least six of those stores lied to me; nobody wants to admit carrying these animals.  This is why new laws need to be passed to protect this fragile environment.  In the words of Dan Dewey, editor and publisher of Freshwater and Marine Aquarium magazine, “‘By nature virtually all of us, as aquarists, are also ecologists.’”

Works cited

 Butler, James Newton, James Burnett-Herkes and John A. Barnes.    “The Bermuda Fisheries.”  Environment Jan./Feb. 1993:  6-15+.

Derr, Mark.  “Raiders of the Reef.”  Audoban Mar./Apr. 1992:  48-54.

Golden, Frederic.  “Reef Raiders.”  Sea Frontiers Feb. 1991:  22-29.

McLarney, Bill.  “Still a Dark Side to the Aquarium Trade.”   International Wildlife Mar./Apr. 1988:  46-51.

Parks, Noreen.  “Immortal Coral.”  Sea Frontiers Jan./Feb. 1993:  58-         64.

Robinson, Steve.  “Teaching Clown Triggerfish Collectors to Use Nets  in the Philippines.”  Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Mar. 1993:         68-72.

Scopes, Jack.  “Coming Soon:  ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Coral and Live Rock.”  Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Apr. 1993:  25-     28.

Wallace, Joseph.  “Reef Relief.”  Sierra Nov./Dec. 1990:  80.

Wells, Sue and Nick Hanna.  The Greenpeace Book of Coral Reefs. Sterling Publishing:  NY.  1992.