There is an excellent article by Dr. Robert J. Goldstein in Volume 21 of SeaScope (a small 4-pg mini-magazine put out by Aquarium Systems, the manufacturers of Instant Ocean. SeaScopes are free, they sit on the counter next to the cash register at my LFS). The article reports 6 lionfish in 3 locations in 2000, 34 lionfish in 12 locations in 2001, and 139 lionfish at 41 locations in 2002. You think the snakehead scare of a couple years ago was bad, wait until the general public gets wind of this. Bad news for us fish people, whether we deserve the blame or not.
Also read an article in another magazine, can't recall which one right at the moment, actually had a map of the eastern coast of the U.S. with highlighted areas and listings of non-native fish found there.Lots of large angels, large tangs, etc., pointing to the possibility of "us" dumping fish that have grown too large for our tanks.
As keepers of aquarium fish, we take on a responsibility not only to the fish we keep but also the environment that the fish come from. Do a little research on the fish you are infatuated with. Is it collected by cyanide poisoning in its native waters? If there is even the slightest possibility, refuse to buy it. I could ramble on about this forever, this topic has touched a nerve with me, but to keep things concise let me just say that if you care about your fish and the future of this hobby at all, please read The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Bob Fenner. He has dedicated a whole chapter of his book to cyanide collection, complete with pictures of a reef "after" cyanide. They are not pretty, fish corpses everywhere. The other side of this coin is that once you have made your informed decision to purchase the fish of your dreams, you are responsible for its future, and that includes keeping it out of the local environment. Once the fish has been collected from the wild, it belongs in an aquarium where its needs are fulfilled. It is cruel to both the fish and the environment you are releasing it into , to turn a non-native fish loose in a local habitat. It's simply not an option, people, find another way to deal with it.
Over the summer there was a story on the local news about a young boy who lived in an apartment complex who reported seeing an alligator swimming around in the complex's lake. Authorities were called, it took two or three days of searching but eventually a small (hard to tell on TV, maybe 3 foot long) alligator was captured. Not a fish-eating caiman, but an alligator! This is in west central Indiana, our winters get pretty cold here.....nothing an alligator is going to survive, and what if the alligator had seen the kid before the kid saw the alligator? People's capacity for ignorance amazes me sometimes.
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Sorry I got carried away here and more than a little off topic, but I think everything kind of ties together. All we need is a little common sense.
And yes, I too am surprised that there are not more comments about this. Wonder why?
