{"id":31914,"date":"2020-08-13T00:05:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T07:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/?post_type=custom_quick&p=31914"},"modified":"2022-08-18T12:06:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T19:06:15","slug":"aquarium-fish-hold-the-cyanide","status":"publish","type":"custom_quick","link":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/article-short\/aquarium-fish-hold-the-cyanide\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquarium Fish, Hold the Cyanide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Practical Solutions for the Ocean\u2019s Ailments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Small like its name, the rural village of Les sits between rugged volcanic mountains and the sea on the northern coast of Bali, Indonesia. Winding two-lane roads flanked by modest housing and open-air markets are busy with motorbikes and rusty pickup trucks. But the ocean is calm. Slipping a worn dive mask over his eyes, Made Partiana freedives beneath the surface with fishing nets in hand. Les fishers like Partiana stay busy. Their village is one of the island\u2019s top suppliers for a multimillion-dollar industry: the saltwater aquarium fish trade.<\/p>\n

Before picking up nets 20 years ago, Partiana and other fishers in Les caught aquarium fish with the same chemical that movie spies put in suicide capsules: cyanide. Fishers mix it with a solution in a spray bottle and use it to blanket the reef in poison. The neurotoxin stuns fish, rendering them a lethargic, easy catch for several minutes. It\u2019s just long enough to collect shy and highly sought-after fish like the blue tang, the inspiration behind Finding Nemo<\/em>\u2019s Dory.<\/p>\n

The easy harvesting that cyanide provides comes at a deadly price. As much as 90 percent of fish caught with cyanide die before they reach a retailer. And the poison can severely damage coral reefs by destroying coral polyps and other organisms essential to reef health. When fishers are properly trained to use nets correctly so that they do not break or dislodge coral, net catching is demonstrably less harmful to the reef and its inhabitants, says Shannon Switzer Swanson, a marine social ecologist and PhD candidate at Stanford University in California, who works with fishing communities in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.<\/p>\n

The global trade in saltwater aquarium fish took off in the Philippines in the 1970s and spread to nearby countries, quickly gaining popularity among fishers in Indonesia. Today the two nations produce around 80 percent of the world\u2019s saltwater aquarium fish, generally supplying collectors in North America, Western Europe, and Asia. The largest buyer is the United States, which imports at least 10 million saltwater aquarium fish each year. If you\u2019ve ever owned a saltwater fish, or seen one swimming in a pet shop tank, there\u2019s a good chance it was caught by an Indonesian fisher like those in northern Bali who earn the equivalent of about US $100 a month.<\/p>\n