Help Stop Aquarium Trade from Destroying our Fisheries

Fishing guide Steve Chaconas with a Potomac River snakehead.

How much damage is being done to our waters and our fisheries by the aquarium trade and its irresponsible customers? Far more than you might think.

In my previous post, I quoted a University of California professor who said, “Globally, the aquarium trade has contributed a third of the world's worst aquatic and invasive species.”

Now a biologist friend has provided me with what looks to be the source for that statistic. It is contained in a paper published in 2004. That being the case, I suspect that 1/3 is, by now, an underestimate of the problem.

Sadly, I also suspect that this eye-opening expose has been read by few outside the scientific community. It needs to be read by anglers, environmentalists, and especially by our members of Congress, who have the Constitutional authority and obligation to protect us from this assault on our fisheries and other natural resources by the aquarium trade.

I hope that you will take a look at it --- it’s only eight pages --- and that you will pass it on to others, including your Congressional representatives.

Here’s the introduction, and please note that internet sales are a huge part of this problem:  

"Aquatic invasive species are just a mouse click away from any home in America. There are more than 11 million hobbyists in the U.S. alone, supporting a $25 billion-per-year worldwide industry in aquarium and aquatic ornamental species, most of which are available through mail order and over the Internet (Kay and Hoyle 2001).

"For example, although water hyacinth is banned in many states, and took Florida over 100 years and considerable expense to control (Schardt 1997), it remains available over the Internet for $4.

"While aquarium release is one of the five top avenues for introduction of non-native invasive species (Ruiz et al. 1997), it has received relatively little attention from both scientists and policy makers. The aquarium and ornamental species industry is growing by 14% annually worldwide, and the majority of export dollars enter developing countries.

"Far outstripping the per-pound value of harvested wild fish, ornamental fish harvest and culture is being promoted as a pathway to environmentally sustainable development by the Fisheries Resources Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. However, this largely unregulated industry poses a serious but mostly unrecognized threat to marine and freshwater ecosystems as a source of invasive species."

In a nutshell:

• A third of the world’s worst aquatic invasive species are aquarium or ornamental species.
• The lucrative aquarium trade will never be environmentally sustainable unless the consequences of escapees are considered.
• Regulations to prevent unwanted species introductions from aquarium and ornamental sources currently lack authority.
• A white list of native or safe alternative aquarium and ornamental species will help prevent unwanted introductions.

Here’s a link to the paper, entitled Beyond ballast water: aquarium and ornamental trades as sources of invasive species in aquatic ecosystems.

And here’s a link for information about H.R. 996, Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention Act. It would set up a white list and a black list for exotic species.

And --- big surprise! --- it’s opposed by the U.S. Herpetoculture Alliance.

Here is a portion of the alliance’s mission statement:

“Our primary mission is to fight for and to protect the rights of herpetoculturists nationwide by impacting regulatory actions at the federal, state and local levels.”

This organization isn’t directly responsible for the exploding population of Burmese pythons in the Everglades and iguanas spreading throughout much of Florida. But it is supportive of lax regulations and policies that allowed these things to happen, as well as the invasion of our waters by snakeheads, cichlids, hydrilla, Eurasian watermilfoil, and many other problematic fish and plant species.

Please, tell your members of Congress to do something about this ever-growing threat to our waters and our fisheries. 

Aquarium Trade Is Source for 1/3 of 'World's Worst Aquatic and Invasive Species'

Bullseye snakehead captured by Florida bioloigsts. FWC photo.

Snakehead, Oscar, Jack Dempsey, Burmese python, iguana, hydrilla, Eurasian watermilfoil.

We have the exotic pet industry and its irresponsible customers to thank for all these troublesome species, as well as many more.

But don’t take my word for it.

"Globally, the aquarium trade has contributed a third of the world's worst aquatic and invasive species," said Sue Williams, an evolution and ecology professor at the University of California, Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory.

Williams also is the lead author of a recent report about the aquarium business in California. Go here to see some of the disturbing evidence.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Herpetoculture Alliance opposes proposed federal legislation --- H.R. 996, Invasive Fish and Wildlife Prevention act---  that would put controls on the industry and better protect our lands, waters, and native species.

Here are a couple of random examples of what the pet industry has done to our waters:

On Lake Tahoe, researchers looking for invasives scooped up a 4.2-pound goldfish in their trawls.

"During these surveys, we've found a nice corner where there's about 15 other goldfish," environmental scientist Sudeep Chandra of the University of Nevada, Reno, told LiveScience. "It's an indication that they were schooling and spawning."

And in Florida, biologists netted a 14-pound, 3-ounce bullseye snakehead while conducting an electrofishing survey. Had the fish been caught on hook and line, it would have been a world record. 

In reporting on that catch, the Miami Herald says this:

“Gestring said the FWC also considers the bullseye snakehead permanently established in Northwest Broward. Scientists expect they will eventually escape into the Everglades but believe the warm-water species probably wouldn’t survive north of Orlando.

“In the Northwest Broward canal system, they don’t appear to have wreaked ecological havoc, Gestring said. After a decade, there is no sign they’re doing any more damage than 22 other foreign fish that also have settled in Florida’s freshwater canals and lakes.”

Exotic Species Are Killing Loons --- Not Lead

As preservationists --- many with an anti-fishing agenda --- continue to press for bans on lead fishing tackle to protect loons, read the following story to see what is really killing the birds. This is a real danger, not one manufactured to support an ideology, with little basis in science and fact.

And it provides a tragic example of how introductions of exotics can have unforeseen consequences.

Chain of Environmental Consequences Slaughtering Birds

State Funds Needed in Nebraska to Fight Invasive Species

Editor's Note: This is a speech that Teeg Stouffer of Recycled Fish prepared in support for state funding to fight invasive species in Nebraska. His actual presentation differed a bit, but not the message: State money is needed to combat mussels, carp, and other invasive threats to Nebraska waters.

My name is Teeg Stouffer, I’m the Executive Director of a non-profit fisheries conservation organization called Recycled Fish. Although our work is national in scope, we’re proudly centered right here in Nebraska. I appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of LB 63.

Since our organization is national in scope, I see the threat of invasive species all over the country firsthand.  It’s to our shame as Nebraskans that it’s a problem that’s being better addressed elsewhere than it is here, and we need more comprehensive support in our state.

LB63 is an important step in that direction. When federal funding runs out, we will be left defenseless against threats like zebra mussels and quagga mussels, which we’ve been able to keep out of our waters for now.

The thing with these invasive species is that once they’re established, there’s virtually no getting rid of them. Smart money chooses low costs today to prevent a problem rather than high costs tomorrow to solve a problem. LB63 is smart money, and that’s why we support it, and we hope you will, too.

Let me paint a quick picture – some of you have seen it. Imagine a lake floor that spans for hundreds of acres. Every rock, every log, every wrecked boat on the bottom is coated, blanketed, with dime-sized mussels – like little clams. They breed by releasing veligers --- little larvae that float in the water. A current pulls them into a pipe --- like the outlet at Lake McConaughy.  And all of a sudden, they’re headed downstream, to cling to a rock, or an irrigation intake, to start a new colony. That’s how it happens. Or it could start with one uninspected boat. The solution is simple. But it’s not free. LB 63 provides the funds.

Colorado invests millions in the prevention of these invaders because of how that state moves water in big concrete tubes between its reservoirs to provide a water supply for their cities. If they get an infestation, the removal costs could 10-times everybody’s water bills.

Imagine what an infestation in the Tri-County Canal systems might look like, and how that would impact farmers. In the span of a couple of years you can have mussels clinging to mussels --- choking out a three-foot diameter tube, so water can’t flow. Sounds like a horrible impact for Nebraska’s farmers, who are reliant on irrigation, doesn’t it?   

Now, I don’t speak for the Nebraska Fish & Game Association, but I’m a member, and I do know that in a poll of its members, anglers in this state supported LB 63 with about a 2/3 majority. That’s a strong show of support from the state’s sportsmen, and it speaks to the fact that sportsmen want to see our natural and wild places protected. They’re counting on you.

I speak for Recycled Fish and our 15,000 stewards across America --- perhaps 500 of which are in Nebraska --- when I ask you to support the bill on behalf of anglers.

But in closing, I speak for myself --- not for my organization --- but for myself, when I say that I’m a person of faith, and I bet some of you are, too. Way back there in Genesis God said to us, “Hey, take care of this place that I made,” and in the time since, we’ve done a pretty terrible job caring for His Creation. This is a chance we’ve all got to do one thing right, so let’s do it. The generations to come are counting on us. 

Carp Invaders More Adaptable Than Previously Believed

Yeah, like we didn’t see this coming. Researchers have discovered that Asian carp are more adaptable than previously believed.

Remember the warning that mathematician Ian Malcolm issued in “Jurassic Park"? When told that the dinosaurs couldn’t reproduce, he said, “Life finds a way.”

Well, so do Asian carp.

“It looks like the carp can probably become established in a wider range of environmental conditions than once thought,” said Reuben Goforth, an assistant professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University.

Translation: The scientists found carp spawning in waters previously believed to be too narrow or too slow moving. They also noted evidence of spawning and eggs drifting in the water as late as September; previously reproduction was believed to end in July.

Read more here.

And be afraid, be very afraid. If you don't believe me, check out this Activist Angler story about a tropical fish --- the Jack Dempsey --- now established in South Dakota. Life finds a way.

The carp are coming, folks. They’re coming to the Upper Missouri, to the inland waters of Minnesota, to fisheries all along the Ohio, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers, to the Great Lakes, and almost certainly many other waters as well.

When, oh when, will we learn to listen to Jeff Goldblum characters in movies? He also warned us in the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”  But did we listen? Noooooooo.