Globe and Mail
A deadly obsession

Nature lovers dream of having something wild to call their own, and Christmas is peak season for making those dreams come true. But the passion for exotic pets, ALANNA MITCHELL reports, amounts to an environmental time bomb. A case in point: the marine aquarium

By ALANNA MITCHELL

Saturday, December 1, 2001 – Page F1

It was Purple Tang's brilliant blue, glimpsed in a coral reef in the Red Sea, that landed it in a plastic bag aboard a cargo plane.

Today, this perfect specimen of Zebrasoma xanthurum lives thousands of miles from the nearest warm ocean. In the wood-panelled rec room of their north Toronto home, however, Bob James and his wife, Debbie, have done their best to recreate its natural environment. They have constructed a complex coral-reef ecosystem that must be kept at precisely 76 degrees Fahrenheit and monitored around the clock.

It is, James says with the clear pride of top-grade hobbyist, a window into the ocean -- a 310-gallon marine apartment whose star tenant cuts a silent swath past a giant clam and eerie masses of brain coral, fellow transplants from afar. They are so well treated that most will live longer here than they would in the wild. August marked the 11th anniversary of the Red Sea expatriate's arrival. "Sometimes," Debbie admits, "Purple Tang gets fed before Robert gets fed."

Yet, despite its cossetted existence, this beautiful marine creature and millions more like it come to the people who cherish them at a terrible cost. Bringing one gorgeous fish to a home aquarium may require the sacrifice of thousands of its neighbours and the annihilation of their seabed home.

Demand is now so great for all sorts of pets taken from the wild that some of the world's most fragile ecosystems are being scarred. The global trade in such animals is estimated as high as $1-billion (U.S.), which excludes the black market in endangered species that leads to rare parrots being stuffed into suitcases and smuggled into the country.

The business is at its peak right now, in the run-up to Christmas. But just as consumers rarely stop to think about how the fillet came to be in the fishmonger's display, most hobbyists have not thought to ask how their wild pets are caught, if they even know they are wild in the first place.

"When people walk into a pet store and see animals for sale, they simply don't make that connection," says Craig Hoover of TRAFFIC North America in Washington, a group that has been set up to monitor the trade in wild plants and animals.

Consumers like to believe that pets here have arrived by an acceptable route. The reality is different. Conservationists in the field tell tales of jungle-dwellers who spend hours filling huge woven baskets with lizards only to have the ones on top crush those below.

Unlike their freshwater cousins, which can be bred in captivity, marine fish also must be captured alive. Many are denizens of the coral reef, a habitat known as the "rain forest of the ocean" and now in such terrible shape that 58 per cent are under threat, according to a September report from the United Nations Environment Program.

In Indonesia, a key source for the pet trade, the figure is 82 per cent. And in parts of the Indian Ocean, 90 per cent of the corals have died from rising water temperatures, while disease is wiping them out in the Caribbean. As well, reefs are being smothered by sediment and mined to make lime for cement.

Fish collectors, often poor and poorly equipped, damage coral because their prey is very quick and difficult to catch in large numbers. To solve this problem, some resort to dynamite in an attempt to stun the fish long enough that they can be captured. In the process, many fish are killed and the structure of the reef damaged.

But the most deadly -- and most common -- tactic is to spray the reefs with highly concentrated cyanide -- the same compound used in the execution chamber.

The practice began in the 1960s in Taiwan and perhaps the Philippines, says Paul Holthus, executive director of the U.S.-based Marine Aquarium Council. Now widely used across the Asia Pacific region, he adds, it has been particularly popular in the Philippines and Indonesia, the source of about 85 per cent of marine hobby fish.

Cyanide is cheap, easy and quiet -- more than a million kilograms has been used in the Philippines alone over time. Reef divers crush a tablet or two of sodium cyanide into a plastic bottle. Then they fill it with water to dissolve the tablets. It comes out to about 1,500 milligrams per litre, according to a study quoted by Scientific American in July. That's 300 times the lethal dose for some fish.

Once they get to the coral reefs, the divers squeeze the milky poison onto the living coral heads to flush out the fish. The cyanide cuts off oxygen to the fishes' tissues, making them slower and easier to snare. Some go into spasms from lack of oxygen or enter a stupor, becoming disoriented and lethargic.

Fish and coral that take direct hits perish instantly, and the vast majority of the fish that survive soon follow suit, but not before they've reached someone's home aquarium, and great amounts of money have changed hands.

Jeff Marliave, an ichthyologist at the Vancouver Aquarium, said the aftereffects of the cyanide are frightening not only because so many creatures die on the spot but because their habitat does too. And, he notes, some of the locals who collect for the lucrative marine trade see nothing wrong with dismantling the fragile reefs in their quest for the perfect specimen.

"They just kick the reefs to pieces," he says, recalling damage he witnessed in Fiji. "The whole reef was a rubble pile. It was like a typhoon had gone through, but it was the pet trade."

In Southeast Asia, as much as 70 per cent of the reef that remains is at serious risk of dying, says UNEP specialist Arthur Dahl, and cyanide has played a "significant" part.

Back when the Jameses first brought Purple Tang home, cyanide wasn't even an issue. At that time, the very idea of creating a private coral reef, a tricky proposition at best, was in its infancy. Their tang was one of the first of its species to reach Canada, and living coral was nearly impossible to buy.

After months of research, the Jameses imported 1,000 pounds of microbe-filled "live rock," a key component of a living ocean ecosystem, and began to fashion the caves, passageways and secret tunnels that make up their mini-seabed.

Since then, the home reef has taken off and costs have come down, but there is still a lot at stake. A basic marine tank of 50 to 60 gallons containing a few fish is worth $800 to $900. Fish prices in Canada range from $7.99 for a Philippine damsel to $150 for a spectacular full-sized Koran Angel from the Indo-Pacific region.

The same-size tank with live corals and better lighting costs between $2,000 and $3,000. But anyone looking for a deluxe, 155-gallon home mini-reef tank, complete with nice fish, live rock and corals, a rounded front and a digital salinity meter, runs a cool $15,000.

Twice that size, the massive tank owned by the Jameses has become legendary and is named in a key resource book as one of the world's most spectacular reef aquariums. Purple Tang has become a celebrity, such a fine specimen that it has been photographed for reference books. Its owners still have no idea exactly how their prize was caught, but like other hobbyists, they now take precautions. Debbie James says she began to observe a potential buy for at least 15 or 20 minutes, looking for the signs: odd little dashes, concave around the stomach, puffy eyes, prone to brushing against rocks. She found that cyanide-affected fish eat a great deal but remain gaunt.

Even so, they have brought home a few fish over the years that died within a day or two. Was it cyanide? They don't know. Marine fish are tricky to transport and keep alive at the best of times. The shock of the plane ride is enough to kill some. So now, they try to trade fish with friends rather than buy commercially.

Ernie Cooper knows more than most why people like the Jameses are wise to be leery. In the past decade, he has seen unbelievable things done to animals: a guitar fashioned from an armadillo shell, a belt buckle from crocodile feet, fake dried tiger penises (they were actually from bulls) and his favourite, a briefcase crafted from carefully skinned chicken legs.

Cooper has been the Canadian head of TRAFFIC since July, after a decade as a federal wildlife officer monitoring animal imports for compliance with such laws as the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

He doesn't oppose the pet industry -- as long as it treats animals humanely (he has seen sacks containing reptiles, his personal passion, arrive with just a handful still breathing) and does no environmental damage.

One way to avoid such damage is to breed pets in captivity. During a visit to a Toronto pet store that specializes in lizards, snakes and tarantulas, he shows how to distinguish between reptiles from the wild, which come battle-scarred and in different ages, and the captive-bred, which are all the same age and in perfect condition.

After pointing out wild skinks from Indonesia and $50 day geckos from Madagascar, Cooper finds some costlier creatures -- a massive emerald tree boa from the jungle canopy of South America (list price: $875) and a greenish-blue plumed basilisk from Central America ($350).

Walking along a bank of cages, Cooper passes a mix of wild and captive-raised -- lizards such as the savanna monitor from Africa, chameleons, more boas and pythons -- and waves his arm up and down, repeatedly saying, "Appendix two, appendix two, appendix two." These animals are not endangered, but are rare enough to be listed under Appendix II of CITES and thus require permits for export. Scientists want to make sure the commercial trade of such species doesn't get too big.

The presence of only one species really worries Cooper. The day gecko, strange as it may seem, costs a bit more when bred in captivity than it does transported all the way from environmentally damaged Madagascar. Cooper considers this "just a little disappointing."

On a brighter note, he says he recently went to a "swap and shop" event for reptile fanciers, and not only was business booming, everything on offer had been bred in captivity. It was evidence of the trend that he hopes "will end the collection in the wild."

Others, however, want something done now.

Although not on the same scale as clear-cutting of forests or slash-and-burn agriculture, the damage caused in the name of the pet trade -- a frivolous industry to some -- is profound. Some leading conservation groups have begun to wonder whether there should be an outright ban on trade in captured animals.

Others, however, argue that, done properly, collecting from the wild could be the best way to conserve the very habitats now being destroyed. The theory is that if, for example, fish suppliers know they can make a living from a reef by taking good care of it, they will.

"The fact that people in the heartland of North American and Europe can experience the wonder and beauty of a coral reef is a good thing," says Paul Holthus of the Marine Aquarium Council. "It adds to the valuing for reefs for conservation."

On Tuesday, the council introduced international guidelines designed to ensure that ocean creatures are captured in a way that is safe for their environment. They want to establish what they call a "line of custody" for the creatures from reef to tank.

Conservationists hope that the practices leading to such certification for marine fish -- there would be a stamp of approval on display in pet stores that earn it -- will spread to other creatures.

Andrew Hederson, livestock manager of the Newmarket branch of Aquarium Services Warehouse Outlets, welcomes the measures and says the cyanide problem may already be on the wane. A few years ago, he says, it was common for fish from some parts of Southeast Asia to arrive looking glorious, only to deteriorate within days. "They would become emaciated, and gradually shrink into themselves."

But today, his company -- with 15 outlets across the country -- deals only with collectors in Hawaii, where cyanide is not used, and a group in the Philippines whose fish come bearing a certificate declaring them to be cyanide-free. Even so, the real proof, says Hederson, who has spent 17 years in the fish trade, is how the fish look after a few days. "Honestly, if I order a fish and see the results of cyanide, I won't order those fish any more."

Along with the fight against using poison, conservation groups are trying to train local people how to catch their elusive prey using nets. It's still tricky work, but they have one big factor in their favour. A recent study by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that tropical reef fish captured for food fetched $6,000 (U.S.) a tonne versus $496,000 if caught for the pet trade.

Will the profit motive prompt suppliers really mend their ways?

Paul Holthus thinks that it's possible. "This is something that can be fixed," he says. "It's not something in the 'too hard' basket."

Bob James agrees. He says fish lovers feel cheated after laying out hundreds of dollars for a cherished specimen only to have it sicken and die within days.

Not only would they "be delighted to know their fish were caught by hand-netting," he says. They would be willing to pay more money for it.
The ethical guide to buying a pet
Marine fish are hardly the only creatures that are born free and wind up in the pet shop window. Here's a representative sampling of the exotics on offer and how to tell which will make a righteous purchase.
Good birds
Most tropical species sold here are bred here as well. They include the African gray parrot, Senegal parrot, conures, budgies, cockatiels, macaws, cockatoos, loris, love birds and quakers. But some are from the wild. In that case, ask to see a CITES permit from the country of origin. Some species of macaw and cockatoo are endangered, but if bred in captivity, they're legal. If not, forget it because anything wild has come from the black market. Would you buy a stolen car?
Good reptiles
The star pet is the leopard gecko, native to Iran, Afghanistan and parts of India and Pakistan. Easy to keep, it goes through interesting colour phases, is gentle and grows only seven or eight inches long (tail included). Best of all, most of those available are bred in captivity.

Another good candidate is the crested gecko, which was thought to be extinct until just six years ago. Since the discovery of a huge cache in New Caledonia, the crested has been bred in captivity to such a degree that it's now commonplace. It is not only docile but can actually be fed baby food.

Corn and milk snakes also make excellent pets. Native to the United States, both have been bred very successfully. They are slender, well-mannered and grow to about five feet in length.

Like freshwater tropical fish, turtles now sold in pet stores have been bred in captivity. But think twice before shelling out: Unless mistreated, even the familiar red-eared slider has a very long life span.
Bad birds
The big problem in Canada right now involves African song birds, especially from Senegal, Mozambique and Mali. Some are captive-bred in the Netherlands, but lots come straight from the wild and often haven't been treated very well. Be sure to inspect the export permit and demand proof that they have been quarantined properly.
Bad reptiles
The iguana is the reptile most commonly imported into North America. It also makes a rotten pet, growing up to six feet long and requiring both a lot of space and a wide variety of food to meet its nutritional requirements. Most are caught in the wild in Central and South America.
Really bad reptiles
It may sound obvious, but stay away from killer snakes such as cobras and rattlers. Also available, but best to avoid, are the giant snakes such as reticulated pythons, rocky pythons, Burmese pythons and anacondas. They get huge and hard to handle, and need a serious enclosure, not just an aquarium on a bookshelf. Many come from the wild, and should stay there.