Fish in the sea

Living on Maui, I see and hear many voices that are concerned about our island state. Many times the concerns come from or are about places outside our state and how they affect us in Hawaii.
One concern that is coming to the top lately is the practice of feeding our ocean fish. This is something that started years ago and allowed tourist to get a good look at the variety of fish on our reefs.
Now after years of that sort of practice, the fish have become so dependent on being feed that they won't eat their normal fare of seaweed and algaes. A snorkler or diver without food may actually find that the fish are taking chunks of their flesh, either thinking their getting something to eat or maybe out of protest for not feeding them.
The lack of grazing by the fish population tends to lead to reefs that are overgrown withvarious seaweeds and algaes, not to mention allowing more invasive species of seaweeds and algaes to take hold and actually get a choke hold on the reef.
These reasons alone should make everyone think twice before feeding our ocean fish.
So we stop feeding the fish and the population swells and we have a reef that is again in balance and full of colorful fish for all to see! Sounds reasonable, but their is one other factor that is of concern.
We have a growing ocean aquarium trade. An aquarium is a great way to bring some beauty and tranquility into your home or place of business. While this is true for people, if you don't look at the time, expense and stress when the fish are all belly up one day, it's not really true for the fish and our reefs.
Over the years many of the reef fish such as the Yellow Tang have been fished out by aquarium fisherman. There were probably only a handful of these tye of fisherman and they took a few trashcan size catches. As happens so often with unregulated industries, the ones who profit the most don't worry about regulating themselves. Very unsustainable practices in a world that needs to focus on sustainability.
The fisherman have used various methods to improve their catch, but at the expense of the reef and fish population. Over-gathering of particular species, actually smashing the coral reef apart to herd the fish into their nets and continuing to fish even deeper waters.
These fisherman can make pretty darn good money harvesting these aquarium fish, but it is already proving to be short lived. It sounds like it's time for the public to become more aware of this practice and speak up with their concerned voices.

For more info on this you can see an article in the Maui News. Here is a link to it http://www.mauinews.com/news/2007/11/26/02reef1126.html.

An advocate for the reef Snorkel Bob was just on a Kaoi 1110 am show called on the upside with Teri http://ontheupsidewithteri.com/. He has a foundation that has more information about this at http://www.snorkelbob.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/sb_foundation.htm?L+scstore+vpvs3884fff4a5f4+1205924771.

I have no connection with any of these sources, but they opened my eyes to the problems that exist in our ocean around Maui.