I don't know of any good articles but I have a bit of experience with importing fishes from Asia. I know on average they lose over half of what they catch before the fish get sold. The fish are held in plastic tubs under shadecloth or tin huts, and have an airstone bubbling away in them. They are overcrowded and not fed. Every day or so the suppliers will take the fish to market where they are auctioned off to the wholesalers and exporters.
Once the wholesalers have them they will sometimes hold the fish for another few days to a week before the fish are packed up and shipped off. More losses occur during this time. Then the fish arrive in their new country and suffer more losses before being sold to the public.
Fish and crustaceans are handled in the same manor with the exception of shrimp and crabs that are territorial, and aggressive species of fish. These are placed in Chinese food containers or bigger containers, (with holes in) and left in holding tubs. The individual shrimp or prs of shrimp are kept in these containers until sold.
Adult angelfish and butterflyfish suffer the most. They are pretty specialised feeders when mature and starve. And when they haven't eaten for a few weeks they often refuse to start eating again. Even young angels and butterflyfish are specialised feeders and only a few species will do well in an aquarium.
Damselfish (and most other fish) are often caught with cyanide (it is meant to be illegal to use but many policing officials look the other way). This stuff damages the fish and the corals. Do a search on Sodium Cyanide or Cyanide Fishing.
Clownfish are caught in the same manor, which is really silly considering they swim around an anemone and don't go anywhere else. They can easily be caught with a net. Due to the movie "Finding Nemo" there has been a huge rise in the demand for clownfishes and the wild populations have dropped significantly since the movie was released.
Seahorses have also suffered dramatically over the years due to the aquarium trade and the Chinese medicine trade. A few years ago CITES declared the collection and keeping of wild caught seahorses as illegal. A blanket ban was put on all seahorses that were taken from open water. Specimens cultured in aquaculture facilities are available and at least 3 species are being farmed in Western Australia. Other places are also farming them. Unfortunately numbers are still illegally taken from the wild for traditional Chinese medicine.
http
/seahorsesanctuary.com.au/
One of the problems with collecting marine fishes is that adult fish are often taken because they are more colourful than juveniles and they fetch a higher price. Unfortunately as mentioned above, many adult marine fishes are specialised feeders and often starve in an aquarium. If they do eat they often don't eat properly and die from malnutrition over the course of 6-12months, (assuming they live that long). And while taking juveniles is a better approach for aquarium purposes, if too many young fish are taken then there won't be any left to grow up into adults and breed. When adults and juveniles are taken then entire reef ecosystems collapse.
There is some good news with several island communities in the Pacific region setting up marine nature reserves. These are areas of coral reef where no fishing is allowed. It is totally off limits to everyone except researchers and scientists. Since the introduction of these marine reserves there has been a steady increase in the number of species (fish, shrimp & corals) being found around the neighbouring islands. This has lead to an increase in food fishes and also aquarium fishes that are available to the locals. The scientists have encouraged the islanders to use nets when collecting fish and not use cyanide or dynamite. Dynamite fishing is used primarily for getting food fish but does extensive damage to the reef. It literally destroys the reef structure by blowing it up. The remaining coral fragments are usually so damaged they rarely recover and huge areas of once luscious coral reef have been turned into a rubble bed by overzealous fishermen who want to get as many fish as possible, but in the shortest time possible.
There are now plenty of aquaculture facilities that are farming clownfishes and various damselfish. Some have even tried breeding angelfish, primarily pygmy angels. Cleaner wrasses have been bred in captivity a few times and several other small species of wrasse have also been successfully bred and reared in captivity. Further to this some places are now propagating hard & soft corals for re-sale in the aquarium trade. These captive made/reared corals actually do better than their wild counterparts. And it is not just commercial fish farmers that are doing this. There are quite a few home aquarists/ hobbyists that have successfully taken fragments or cuttings (known as frags) from corals and kept them alive and watched as they develop into a whole new coral. Other people have had anemones divide in their tanks and some of these have survived and been passed on to other fish keepers. Unfortunately the number of corals and fish being reproduced in captivity is still low compared to the quantity taken from the wild. So we need more people breeding more fish and taking more frags from their corals in order to reduce the amount of wild caught stock turning up in the shops.
Freshwater fishes were under the same pressure many years ago. There were concerns about neon tetras and freshwater angelfish and how many were being taken from the Amazon. Literally thousands were collected and many died before people worked out how to keep them successfully. Then they were bred in captivity and now very few if any are taken from the wild. Some varieties of angelfish are still taken but most tetras, barbs and catfish are captive bred. This means there is a hope for marine species too. If more people keep them, there will be more demand on wild stocks initially. However, there is also a chance more people will successfully breed them and help to provide knowledge on their proper captive care. Once this happens the captive bred fishes will become more readily available and the wild stocks will be less stressed, assuming there are any left by then.
Hope this helps a bit
