Even in the mid-90s when the explosion in Berlin / live rock systems occurred, it was still a niche hobby.

Those days are gone, however. With the increasing affluence of the Far East, marine aquarium keeping has spread to millions, and I don't think the reefs can take it — particularly not in the case of animals like rare LPS, which we should really be figuring out how to get to spawn and settle in captivity.

That's the upside — a ban, or at least severe limits on collection, would encourage more research.

Anyway, we can't have reef keeping as is with a Chinese and Indian hobby.

And that's certainly not to decry those SE nations wanting a reef tank — the US, and to a lesser extent Europe, has gobbled up what was 'their' resource for three decades, after all.

Even in the mid-90s when the explosion in Berlin / live rock systems occurred, it was still a niche hobby.

Those days are gone, however. With the increasing affluence of the Far East, marine aquarium keeping has spread to millions, and I don’t think the reefs can take it — particularly not in the case of animals like rare LPS, which we should really be figuring out how to get to spawn and settle in captivity.

That’s the upside — a ban, or at least severe limits on collection, would encourage more research.

Anyway, we can’t have reef keeping as is with a Chinese and Indian hobby.

And that’s certainly not to decry those SE nations wanting a reef tank — the US, and to a lesser extent Europe, has gobbled up what was ‘their’ resource for three decades, after all.

Also the CBD is not petitioning this in an effort against the aquarium industry. They are a respected conservation group that got A. cervicornis and A. palmata placed under ESA protection.

I agree that it would be a better situation if we were only buying these corals that have been captively propagated. Many of the species on this list are already abundantly available as captive-grown specimens. In reality, we don't have much excuse for not sticking to captive-grown only specimens for some of these corals. However, I do not think that adding them to the Endangered Species list will achieve this end.

If this were to pass hobbyist and vendors would need a Federal permit to posses or propagate any coral that made the list and even if you got the permit you wouldnt be able to cross state lines with it. So no more shipping that coral(s).

So now what happens to the villagers that make a living at small coral farms all through the region? In some of these places the only way they can feed their family’s is collecting and working at these farms. It’s in their best interests to keep the reefs healthy and to practice sustainability. Take that away from them and the corals are of little value to them, they start blast fishing again to feed their family’s and they start ripping the reefs apart again to build their homes.

Now lets say a few of these corals get on the list. Who’s charged with IDing the different species and saying this acro is legal and this one isnt? Do you think the average F&W inspector can tell the difference between Acropora globiceps and Acropora lokani? So what do they do get a Marine biologist to inspect every shipment, trust the importers/exporters, or do they say they have no way of telling and stop all acros from coming in?

There are many different things that could happen with this. In this post Mike lays out all the possibilities pretty well http://www.reef-geeks.com/forums/enviro-geeks/1409-noaa-review-status-82-species-coral-2.html#post32259

While I still don't “know” one way or the other, the recent Nat Geo article (Jan '10) on the illegal animal trade also included some info on CITES (which it did not speak favorably of) and the legal animal trade in southeast asia. To quote: “corals for marine aquariums dominate live animal exports, followed by reptiles for the pet trade.” The numbers were what really shocked me, however. There were 8,619,442 live corals exported from SE Asia from 2000-2007. This number made me realize our hobby isn't so small. And with the number of captive-raised Acropora species available, and the ease of propogation, if a ban happens, maybe it isn't such a bad thing. And this is for collection of corals — the effect of fish collection, when cyanide or blast fishing is used, can be even more devastating (see e.g., article in last month's Coral mag in diving in Vietnam, where there is a noticeable lack of almost any fish as the result of cyanide fishing — unfortunately it is still happening). That said I'm not sure yet whether I agree with this bill. Rather, I just want to point out that we, as hobbyists, need to be cautious not to let our own biases and desires get on the way of an objective analysis of the magnitude of the impact of our hobby on wild reefs.