Comments on: Save Our Reef Fish in Hawaii!!!! HEARING TODAY!

By: Maui Vacation Guide

Maui Vacation Guide — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:25:53 +0000

Thankyou for this eye opening article. Let’s just hope that people can work together to save Maui’s coral reefs.

By: Simple Simon

Simple Simon — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:21:13 +0000

Paka Dowd is correct that vacation rentals are based on greed and nothing else. Aquarium collecting is also based on greed, & is much worse, involving animal cruelty & reef death. Yes, aquarium collectors must be licensed–it takes $50 on line for a ticket to empty any reef in Hawaii except for MPAs & then send those fish off for an amusement industry in a far away place. This is as far from Aloha as the 7th moon of Uranus. Aquarium collectors are supposed to report but don’t. They have no limit on their catch, no limit on the number of collectors and no constraint on species. Some are found nowhere else in the world & die in captivity in 30 days but are sold by the hundred daily–Hawaiian cleaner wrasse, Moorish idol, most butterflyfish. You want to catch some fish to eat? No problem, unless you get ciguatera. But that’s your choice. Catching millions for export is wrong, no matter where you or your parents were born.

By: Paka Dowd

Paka Dowd — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:44:04 +0000

I have been diving for fun and food on a regular basis for most of my life. Some of my friends are collectors, they must have a license, report their catch and are very restricted as to where they can collect fish. They make a modest living and respect the ocean to a much higher degree than many of the tourists you attract to our Islands.
Maybe we need a bill to outlaw the money sucking and Aloha spirit destroying practice of vacation rental. This greedy business draws thousands of sometimes arrogant angry tourist that crowd and clutter up our beaches and roadways. (Note this statement is just as ignorant as yours is about fish collectors.)