harvesting own coral possible?

Discussion in 'The Bucket' started by dumbderk, May 19, 2010.

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  1. WhiskyTango

    WhiskyTango Eyelash Blennie

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    dumbderk, there are places on this planet where corals are abundant and harvesting by knowledgeable local professionals is ok. Florida ain't one of them... Our reefs are hammered right now by all sorts of factors. So NO, you should not come here looking to grab something wild, not cool....

    And Gresham, it's called looking after your own...

    I included a wink icon to indicate a joke about the shark. Next time I'll put "WARNING KIDS SHARK JOKE HERE"
     
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  3. mikejrice

    mikejrice 3reef Affiliate

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    This is pretty entertaining, but I'm going to have to stay on the sidelines of the coral collection argument.

    I would like to clear up Pere's point about the continents though. There are seven clearly defined like he stated. Central America is a region, but that doesn't make it a separate continent.
     

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  4. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    Many people would argue 6, because of the less-than-distinct geographical divide between Europe and Asia; that really depends on whether you're going by the political type of division or geographical, though.
     
  5. Peredhil

    Peredhil Giant Squid

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    Folks, in honesty from my outside point of view, I'm with WhiskyTango. His joke was clearly a joke. It is not in any way realistic to think there are soldier guard sharks.

    It looks to me like some folks took a non-issue joke and blew it out of proportion. I find Whiskey's comment to be perfectly acceptable and applicable in a family site. He isn't the one that is putting off the perception of lashing out in my point of view. But being forced to play defense when he shouldn't have to be.
     
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  6. Crimson Ghost

    Crimson Ghost Blue Ringed Angel

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    Holy crap batman – I leave work to drive home and whamo….this thread takes on a life of its own.

    I am pretty sure we covered the basics here – pilfering our natural reef’s is a bad thing on several levels. You can see by this thread alone that the simple thought can rub many people the wrong way.

    When I dive its fantastic to see the wild life, its majestic in every sense of the word. To pull something from the reef would take away from it all. Even if the intent is good – such as to frag and share. There are professionals that do this, so we don’t have to visit Geothermal Aquaculture Research Foundation …. Wonderful people. Save a reef.

    All in all this thread has been informative and amusing – thanks to all who partook.
     
  7. RHorton

    RHorton Pajama Cardinal

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    Florida should just ban any harvesting of any coral without a professional harvesting license.

    Why do they let people with just a fishing license do this?
     
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  9. blackraven1425

    blackraven1425 Giant Squid

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    Florida should give companies and researchers a monopoly on harvesting coral. Despite the fact that companies can be much more harmful to the reef because many don't care about the reef, just the profits that can be had from it.

    I mean, really, there's places around the world where they still use cyanide to kill (um, I mean "catch") fish....humanity hasn't progressed to the point where profits will be a second priority to conservation, regardless as to how civilized you believe our country to be. I don't doubt that there's a whole lot of professionals that really don't want to hurt the reef, but there's going to be quite a few that are reckless, even when working for a company, regardless as to how you decide to restrict the licensing.

    I'd even argue that people certified to dive recreationally and have a fishing license, who can only take 5 polyps of softies a day, are somewhat less likely to damage the reef because they don't have a time limit, deadlines, or profits to worry about, and can focus on being responsible instead.
     
  10. stepho

    stepho Panda Puffer

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    octocorals (soft corals) are the only thing you can really take and there are limits to it, there are also areas that are protected. Whether it is ethical or not I won't get into but that is the law. Octocorals do not increase the size of the reef when they die like hard corals do.

    It really isn't a good idea to go collecting specimens unless you know what you are doing. How do you know you aren't in a protected area, can you REALLY tell if the coral you are collecting is not one of the protected species? If you guess wrong you are looking at very hefty fines.
     
  11. Crimson Ghost

    Crimson Ghost Blue Ringed Angel

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    I would argue that Florida should let companies, researchers and individual’s the right to harvest corals at a cost of $5,000 per frag. It’s then up to the harvester to properly care for their new acquisition and frag the living crap out of it in order to recoup the initial investment.

    This is why places like www.Garf.Org exists. They are all about saving reef;s and fragging colonies.

    In the beginning of this thread I mentioned I saw a fist fight on a dive boat – that was all over a few shells pilfered from the deep…..I can’t imagine what would happen if someone took a coral – keep in mind, 50+ percent of us divers carry knives (never know when you find your self face to face with the great white !) hahaha
     
  12. Crimson Ghost

    Crimson Ghost Blue Ringed Angel

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    Great point – and the original poster mentioned that he and his girlfriend would only be interested in things they have never seen before !!