Is there a legal way of minor hobbyist coral harvesting in the Florida Keys?
- Thread starter STiTCH87
- Start date
dannyp02908
Non-member
"but as many on here know even though I have wild coral, I grow them and sell pieces of them. Which is aquaculture at home."
That's what BRS is about and the more people we have doing this, eventually we won't need any wild coral.
I do t agree with this. Education in conservation. Collecting from the wild is certainly not conserving especially when what is available to collect where he's at is likely already available in abundance.
There was a thread last year regarding this same subject. The kid did come back with 3 corals. Then his heater blew up and wiped out most of his tank including the wild specimens. Souch for conservation in that regard.
Ryan17
Non-member
I don't agree with him collecting either, he said he was not going too anyways... no one on BRS should. What I am saying is that if you have wild coral and grow them out to share with reefers then we are definitely helping the wild reefs, therefore the more people growing out and fragging coral the better... Also if you obtain a wild frag and grow it up too 10x the size of when you got it, that is awesome because you are reducing the collection of that specific wild frag. Then the people that bought the frags of that coral would have an aquacultured frag and so on and so on... sorry if that did not make sense but I hope you get the point man.
higorc
Call me IGOR :)
I thought the initial question was very reasonable and worth asking, if not archiving
From what I have heard over the years, Florida is SUPER strict about how they regulate collection AND they will "throw the book" at anyone caught breaking the rules. You can't take even the slightest chip of rock, and almost everything is off limts except zoas and ricordia. Don't quote me on those particulars, but do take the time to read up on the rules so that if you do collect you don't end up doing time with some crack dealer or pervert
Like I mentioned in my comment, Florida considers illegal harvesting of marine fauna the same if not worse than dealing drugs... I have heard of people going to jail and or paying HUGE fines for illegally collecting corals and or LR while I lived there...
This is all from personal experiences while living there for those 5 years...
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STiTCH87
Saltwater OCD Victim
There are corals that are near extinct in the wild that have been collected and are grown in aquaculture facilities and then released back into the wild to help seed the reef. Elkhorn/staghorn I believe is one of them iirc. Collection can certainly do damage, but there's a photocell side to it as well. If the coral reefs are dying on their own even without being collected, then I feel that having these corals be collected, even if only once, then grown in a tank and fragged out to as many people as possible, us a great option to help conserve in the long run. You never know, down the road many corals likely won't exist in the wild but so many of us may own them in our tanks that we could do a Noahs ark kinda deal and try to reseed and save the reefs that way. Everyone has their opinions, and all are free to voice them, I'm just voicing mine. I never intended for this thread to become an argument of oposing views from myself not anyone else. BRS is a peaceful family site for people to befriend others and learn proper saltwater husbandry and I wish to keep atleast my own threads and positive as possible so if we may please refrain from bickering any disagreements I'd appreciate it. Even if the thread were to be closed, I got my answers long ago and that was all I was asking for. Thank you.
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Don't be that guy.
You don't agree with harvested corals, and don't agree with people that harvest corals and grow them out. Please, can you explain to me how you got a hold of your aquacultured corals? - Indirectly, you are supporting harvesting, since all corals had to be harvested at some point.
So...you bought the corals from the guy that got the corals from the guy that harvested them. But you don't like this. I'm confused.
I would argue that a licensing system would work better than just making everything illegal (since we all know how much people care about illegal stuff). If you set up a licensing system and give the money back to the comunities in those areas, then they will actualy help stop people, since it is in their best interest to stop you. It could work Just like hunting big game in Africa. Places in Africa where farmers can make money from hunters have more wildlife than places where everything is illegal and farmers can't benefit.
Just saying.
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STiTCH87
Saltwater OCD Victim
There's actually some areas of the world also where humans rely on harvesting fish and corals and inverts for a living. Poor countries where money is scarce otherwise. Like where mandarins cone from for example. Poor people in that area catch them with a sewing needle in a string for Pocket change but it puts food on the table. Not saying that makes it right. I wish fish were all caught sagely and painlessly but we know how hard that usually goes.
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Greg Hiller
BRS Moderator
So....my opinion on this is if you are taking very small pieces from the wild and getting them into a captive environment and propagating them, in the long run that's pretty good for the environment...though there can be many ways to debate even that. Still, I've been on dive trips where people knocked over more colonies with their flippers than I have in my 400 gallon SPS system.
Now to the legal way to do some of this in Florida. Years ago (and I assume some of these guys are still in operation) when they first limited and then banned live rock collection in Florida, several operations mined a bunch of dry rock and dumped it into the water on sections of the ocean leased from the government (areas where there was just sand). In just a few years these dead piece of rock were teeming with life. I understand that if you purchase aquacultured live from Florida they do not have to knock anything off of it, so it oftentimes comes in with lots of live coral, including hard corals. Of course it usually comes in with mantis shrimp, tons of baby urchins, and some Aiptasia too, but that’s beside the point. Once when I was down in the Tampa area I went diving with one of the two guys that ran the Tampa Bay Saltwater operation (there’s Mark and Richard I believe). Mark and I went ‘critter’ diving. He can legally collect and he was pulling in gorgonians, snails, sponges, sea stars, serpent stars, etc. at a rate that would make your head spin. Mark loves to have people along to dive with (I think he usually goes out alone as it was just the two of us), so if you want to collect with him, you can…on his permit. We were not diving on the live rock lease sites, but my understanding is if you can dive you can cherry pick amongst the rock piles that they have for the rock you want, so presumably you’d be able to get some pretty nice stuff on the rocks you pick out. Of course you’d have to pay the price of their live rock.
Now to the legal way to do some of this in Florida. Years ago (and I assume some of these guys are still in operation) when they first limited and then banned live rock collection in Florida, several operations mined a bunch of dry rock and dumped it into the water on sections of the ocean leased from the government (areas where there was just sand). In just a few years these dead piece of rock were teeming with life. I understand that if you purchase aquacultured live from Florida they do not have to knock anything off of it, so it oftentimes comes in with lots of live coral, including hard corals. Of course it usually comes in with mantis shrimp, tons of baby urchins, and some Aiptasia too, but that’s beside the point. Once when I was down in the Tampa area I went diving with one of the two guys that ran the Tampa Bay Saltwater operation (there’s Mark and Richard I believe). Mark and I went ‘critter’ diving. He can legally collect and he was pulling in gorgonians, snails, sponges, sea stars, serpent stars, etc. at a rate that would make your head spin. Mark loves to have people along to dive with (I think he usually goes out alone as it was just the two of us), so if you want to collect with him, you can…on his permit. We were not diving on the live rock lease sites, but my understanding is if you can dive you can cherry pick amongst the rock piles that they have for the rock you want, so presumably you’d be able to get some pretty nice stuff on the rocks you pick out. Of course you’d have to pay the price of their live rock.
$300-400 will get you certified.
New england is one of the best areas in the country to dive.
At least that's what I found when doing my research.
Overlook reef
Non-member
I dive around here and love it! There are lots of things to see and occasionally grabbing Lobsters on the way up for a great dinner afterwards.
(and before I get jumped, I have a license!)I have a dry suit so that I can dive 3/4 of the year.
Get a full face mask.
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STiTCH87
Saltwater OCD Victim
Never seen one. Does that make it easier to breathe? I'll have to look into that. I had a really hard time with the mouth piece. Made me feel like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. Felt claustrophobic if that makes any sense.
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