[quote author=cortez marine link=topic=5349.msg66446#msg66446 date=1228007152]
People,
The shipment is the result of about 15 years of very expensive effort that has finally begun to pay off. My Mexican partner Arturo Valdes eventually died in the endless pursuit of this very permit.
The costs of survey after scientific survey nearly exhausted our resources and is why no one else...including all the L.A. importers are in this thing. Few people are as hard headed as I and they quit long before before the needed breakthrus will occur.
I speak Spanish and work with biologists, partners , officials and fishers all the time.
I also spend more time with the US Fish and Wildlife Service then you might imagine and pre-alert them and reveal all permits to them.
We decided to house the fishes with Aquarium Concepts as they are near my house and the airports and wildlife services and brokers.
The economic slowdown left many tanks at A.C. lightly stocked empty and I saw an opportunity to house them in a better place while I set up a new wharehouse. I like his RK-2 skimmer and attention to detail and disease issues.
Its also temporary.
They are a social angel and mediums and large ones do better in groups. The fewer there are the more they fight.
OUT OF 288 FISH...THERE WERE NO DOAS and it was no accident. We know what we are doing.
I caught 1/3 rd of them myself and my local collecting team the rest.
These young fish were collected over a large range and represent many thousands seen. Surveys and permits preceed all collection activity by years.
The years are finally up and we get a chance to regain so much financial loss and risk in the proving our case for sustainability.
The USFWS then reviews the paperwork and when in order, allows the importation.
Most of the fish encountered are adults...ie breeders and we are one of the only fisheries that see yearling fishes as more valueable.
The older fishes are all left to breed and make plankton. They make millions and millions of clarion babies every year but mother nature uses eggs as much as food as anything else.
The fish are not that special...the prevalence of healthy habitat is and is what determines their abundance.
They are abundant in their own habitat...they are rare in human hands, especially in urban centers of mass consumerism.
If they were biologically rare there would be a point here but they are only rare to our eyes which is a culturally skewed definition of the term and hardly credible.
Now gem tangs are rare in their own habitat...so are conspics and many species of the most coveted of corals.
Half of them will be exported this week now that the holidays are over. That slowed us down and kept the fishes all together and from being shipped out.
If you think its crowded at A.C. you really need to see a wholesaler after putting away 70 boxes of Philippine fish sometime. This is in fact a wholesale operation that allowed the public to have a peek.
Shall we keep imported fishes hidden in wharehouses as a rule? If there is a problem with revealing how the trade works, perhaps we should.
I thought people might find it interesting.
Steve
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We;; I thought it was amazing to see, and I am grateful. AC is a good place and they run a good shop
