AR-News: 'Finding Nemo' pets harm ocean ecology

[jim robertson]

'Finding Nemo' pets harm ocean ecology
By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor
01 July 2004


In Disney's version, the brightly coloured fish escape their aquarium and 
return to the ocean where they live happily ever after. But in reality, the 
liberated cast of Finding Nemo could threaten the very survival of some of 
the most exotic marine life in America.

Tropical fish are being returned to the "wrong" ocean by their owners.

A team at the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary has discovered a brace of 
unusual fish that would never normally be found there, including a pair of 
orbicular batfish, more commonly seen in the Pacific - but popular among 
aquarium owners. Since 2000 there has been a growing number of sightings by 
divers and fishermen of the predatory, and highly poisonous, lionfish, along 
the eastern seaboard from North Carolina to New York.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has a growing database of sightings and 
captures of "non-indigenous fish". Off Florida alone, it includes the 
raccoon butterfly fish, several varieties of the tang and angel fish, and 
the orangespine unicorn fish. All are popular aquarium choices for their 
colour and variety.

"It's a Finding Nemo story," Brice Semmens, a marine biologist at the 
University of Washington in Seattle, told New Scientist magazine.

"Individuals are releasing their pet fish with the best of intentions, but 
in the wrong ocean. It is a really bad idea." The incoming fish can 
drastically alter the ecological balance of an area. The lionfish, for 
example, preys on a range of fish, shrimps and crabs but the Atlantic 
species have not evolved any strategy against it. "Introduction of the 
lionfish is an ecological quantum leap for local fishes that have no 
experience dealing with this voracious predator," said Dr Semmens.

He carried out research to link aquariums with the foreign species because 
others had blamed their presence on ships emptying their ballast tanks near 
harbours. He compared statistics of imports to the United States of tropical 
marine fish with sightings collected by the Reef Environmental Education 
Foundation (Reef) from 1993 to 2000.

His research showed that the more a species was imported, the greater the 
likelihood of sightings off the coast; and ships were ruled out because 
there was no overlap between the natural homes of the fish recorded and 
shipping routes.

Walter Courtenay, a research fishery biologist with the USGS, suggested that 
the rise in the number of lionfish off the Florida coast might be due to 
captains of dive boats introducing them to attract customers - who would 
have seen the fish in aquariums and on TV, and so be disappointed not to see 
them when doing their own dive. However, the problem is that the lionfish 
could be impossible to eradicate once it is established.
    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=536969



So many gods, so many creeds,so many paths that wind and wind, while just 
the art of being kind is all this sad world needs.
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1805-1919)