Article: Banggai Cardinals- Pterapogon kauderni debates

[melev]

You can view the page at http://www.reefaddicts.com/content.p...uderni-debates

[MarcG]

Great article! I'll admit that I tried one once and it ended up "wasting away." Then I saw a fellow reefer raising banggai cardinals! Definitely a cool fish, but I don't think I'll be getting any anytime soon

[fishtal]

Nice article. From a breeders standpoint, I hear a lot of talk about WC specimens not doing well after transport. CB specimens seem to have a much better survival rate.

[agsansoo]

I'm also a (hobbyist) breeder of maroon clownfish and banggai cardinals. I have found these guys a challenge to raise. Once a pair is established in an aquarium, they are quite hardy and easy to care for. Trust me, nobody raising banggai's is getting rich.

[Jessy]

Great article to start with here at ReefAddicts Adam! I like that you've presented both sides to the argument.

Is it odd, that I've never once had a desire for a banggai in my tanks? They just hover... kinda why I'll never put another clown in my tank. Give me a wrasse any day.

[mpedersen]

Interesting, but in truth if you delve into the hard numbers and data further you'll realize that the answers were already there. You omitted that the US Government actually felt that the data was compelling enough to propose listing this species on CITES despite it not being native fauna (normally, it is a native country that proposes such a listing). You also failed to bring to the table that this was withdrawn due to political reasons and pressures (that had nothing to do with the fate of the fish itself). Furthermore, you failed to mention the ongoing truth that this species is listed on the IUCN Red List as Endangered. Yes ,it is still considered "endangered".

Regarding your harvest numbers, while you making an interesting example, the truth is that harvest numbers lower than the largest reported (a few years old now) were already having documented negative effects, to the extent of localized population extinctions as you reported (it's also been shown that these localized populations may be genetically distinct as well).

While I respect Bob's observations, I think you may have inadvertently misquoted or mis-stated something. Has Bob been to the Banggai Islands themselves in the last few years, or is this personal assessment of numbers taken from the introduced populations in places like the Lembah Straits? Regardless, the allusion to non-native populations is a very poor justification on the "everything is OK" standpoint. Let me explain the disconnect.

Lets talk about the Lionfish in the Atlantic, and lets hypothetically say we were overharvesting them in the Indo-Pacific. The argument that an introduced population that is doing well is really inappropriate...it would be like saying it's OK to wipe out all the Lionfish in the Indo-Pacific because they're all doing great in the Caribbean, the Gulf, and the Eastern US Coast from Florida up to New Jersey. I don't think I need to explain further just how wrong this line of logic is.

This is entirely flawed thinking. We don't know what problems extripating the Banggai from it's native endemic habitat will create, as well as the problems that it's introduction into places it didn't belong creates. The chain of cause and effect isn't something we can anticipate, only something we can document. To point to burgeoning "exotic" populations of Banggais as a sign that "all is well" or "it's OK to wipe them out of the Banggai Islands" totally dismisses the fact that the exotic population could wipe out a half dozen native goby species and two other cardinalfish species.

I am all for sustainable wild harvest where appropriate. It would seem though that based on the information at hand, our wild caught Banggais should be coming from the introduced populations where they don't belong (and are quite possibly causing population problems for native / endemic species), and local populations in the Banggai Islands should be allowed to recover from the documented problems.

I need to remind everyone that the fecundity of a Banggai Cardinalfish is VERY low, which is extremely Atypical for a Marine Fish. Recruitment to Replenishment theory may be a far more applicable justification for sustainable harvest in a marine fish that produces thousands or hundreds of thousands of viable offspring in a lifetime. Optimistically, looking at a Banggai Cardinalfish, a 2 year lifespan (generous in the wild), monthly reproductive cycle, and average brood of 25 fish, yields only 600 offspring in a lifetime. Compare that to something like a Bluestreak Cardinalfish (Apogon leptacanthus) which spawns twice as frequently and might produce 500 offspring per batch. That means one pair produced 48,000 babies in a lifespan. 600 offspring, or 48,000 offspring. Given that the end goal is to simply get 2 to live to live a full reproductive lifespan, in BOTH scenarios, which species has more "wiggle room" when we apply an additional "predatory pressure" that is not part of the natural food web (because technically, that's what we are). How much worse does it all become when we realize that we are not targeting the "babies" that so often never make it, but that our harvest targets the ADULTS? The question really isn't how many babies you can harvest along their way to adulthood, it's how many reproductively active adults you can take away before things go bad. That's when things should really become clear.

Of course, all of this could be pointless to debate - it is possible that the global economic problems of the last few years may have reduced the harvest levels of Banggais. However, we do not know that, it is purely speculation. But it may have bought us enough of a reprieve. What we really need is someone like Vagelli to go back and do a new population survey using the same methodologies as prior.

Still, your supply and demand argument fails to acknowledge the truth that it is far more difficult for anyone to RAISE a price than to lower it. To simply say "they're cheap, so they must be plentiful" is very flawed thinking again. The other thing we do not know is what the fishers were paid for Banggais when they retailed at $300...it in fact could have been the same $0.25 per fish 15 years ago as it is today. In other words, the "wiggle room" in price may never have been at the source, but in the markups applied afterwards. Thus, ss local populations wane, fishers might very well simply move on to others. It is interesting to think about WHY Scott Michael's observed shift in hardiness happened...afterall, these fish are now crammed together and shipped in much poorer conditions because they became "cheap" fish. It isn't the fisherman who are packing these fish for shipments...it's an exporter middleman who might still pay the same price to a fisher that he always did, but now can't expect nearly the same amount of income because the importers won't pay for it, because the end consumers aren't paying for it either. Still, it's nice to see that overall, I think Banggai Cardinalfish prices have gone up a bit on WC fish...maybe as much as 50% in from $20 to $30 a head in the last 2-3 years.

Still, I have to ask why the size of wild caught banggais has become smaller? I think it is likely they are being harvested ever younger because fish of size may not be around. You either have smaller adult fish when harvest pressures are high, or populations are overcrowded. We have documentation already proving that overcrowding was not occuring, but overharvest was.

Just more fuel for the fire Adam

Matt