Shorter New York Times: The salt water aquarium trade is killing the Florida Keys!

Full disclosure: I used to hang out with a few people involved in this trade, usually over wine coolers and beer and panic over tests. So, yeah.

With that said, look. The ecosystem of the Florida Keys reef and areas is a tremendous, awful, mess, except possibly in the small area surrounding the Dry Tortugas and probably not even there. Tourist brochures use reef pictures from the 1970s for a reason. The reefs have been hit by severe, severe bleaching; water quality problems from Everglades runoff and the multiple Everglades issues; lots and lots of boats and boating accidents; overfishing of large fish and queen conch; a confusing and not always followed policy of tiny no take zones that the Coast Guard frequently does not have the resources to enforce (they are mostly focused on drug smugglers) and more. A friend literally just sent me an email last night describing a Pompano Beach dive (just north of the area). In a forty-seven minute dive he saw a grand total of two large fish and four lobster, along with some smaller fish. Two. Large. Fish. He also saw significant coral growth north of the latitude where they typically grow - and while coral growth might sound good, massive reef-building coral growth in Broward County strongly suggests that the waters around Broward County are getting significantly warmer, a suggestion borne out by measurements. (This is important, because by "waters around Broward County" we mean "the Gulf Stream" which is one of the driving forces of the world's weather.) The chief question frequently asked by divers out on the reefs is "Where are the fish?"

I'm not saying that the invertebrate salt water aquarium fishery is helping matters. But in a system where, according to NOAA, 4.2 million pounds of spiny lobster were harvested in 2008 alone (most from Florida, although that figure does include the Carolinas and Georgia since NOAA doesn't separate these statistics), representing from about a half million to 3 million lobsters (spiny lobsters are legal-sized at about 1 pound, but people often take heavier ones), this has a comparatively minor impact. NOAA, by the way, says that this fishery, which considerably dwarfs the saltwater aquarium trade, is sustainable, although it's only fair to say that many people dispute NOAA's claims about what makes a sustainable fishery.

I'm the first to say that the Florida Keys coral reefs need help, especially if we plan to keep a sustainable spiny lobster fishery, and that we need to take as comprehensive look as possible, involving as many stakeholders as possible. (People tend to be more environmentally conscious when a financial motive or self-interest is involved.) And it would be nice to focus on the water.