Sustainable collection practices

This article is designed to hopefully be used by specimen collectors as a reference material to help improve collection practices, be they commercial or recreational in nature. 

Collection regulations.
Check the regulations that apply to not only your state but also to specific areas as marine parks etc. 

Impact minimisation.
Some collectors have been known to use abominable method to capture specimens. Use reef friendly forms of collecting if you damage the fish habitat there will be less fish to collect in the future. Don't support any collector or shop by purchasing specimens known to be caught by non reef friendly methods. 

Similarly maintain biodiversity in all areas this is especially important for collectors who may visit the same reefs on an on going basis do not take all of any species regardless of value. We do still need brood stock! Leave behind all imperfect specimens. Check carefully for any floored or dead polyps before removing the specimen from the reef. Wave your hand over fleshy corals to make the polyps retract before removing them, you may well find barren patches. Any coral that has been removed from the reef and left to roll freely along the reef surface will almost certainly die. These specimens can have there chances of survival greatly increased by simply wedging them into a mud or sand substrate. Although this may not sound a permanent solution we have used this method for coral propagation with great success, though care does need to be taken to select a stable substrate in more wave swept areas.

Coral gobies Gobidon sp. becoming more common in the market place recently. They are one species that are often captured by removing the corals from the reef to shake the fish free of there home or by chemical immobilisation. A collector should be able to target a few coral gobies by carefully combing collection of the Acropora specimens capturing the gobies within at the same time. However any collection beyond this should not entail destruction of the corals especially considering the low value of the fish. Question the origin and capture methods of any supplier with volumes of these fish. 

Often while collecting breeding pairs of clownfish are found with there eggs. They should be left, unless you are specifically targeting brood stock for aquaculture. Large pairs are aggressive and undesirable in the aquarium.

Collect within your limits.
Know what type of specimens and how many you can safely collect, keep alive and transport. Many specimens are not easy to transport, especially from remote locations. Many a collector has gotten to greedy, taken too much and at the end of the day lost the lot. It is much easier and more successful to return home with a few healthy small specimens be very selective in what you take.

Commercial collectors and wholesalers have invested years of experience at understanding how to prepare and ship specimens to maximise health over extended periods in transport. Don't be afraid to ask for advise, it is cruel to the animals to learn by trial and error. An experience collector may use countless variations in shipping methods for a single species of coral, accounting for variations in size of specimens, time in transit, temperatures and transportation methods used.

Collecting conduct.
Personally I have seen a continual loss of bio diversity in some reef systems of high collection activities . One reef system that comes to mind in particular, continually has been over collected for many years because of its easy access by short sighted commercial and recreational collectors.  

Of more recent times with the baby boomers travelling north every winter in increasing numbers this location (Cleaverville beach) has become very popular with campers up to 150 campers can be enjoying the lifestyle of living by a coral reef only 100 meters away. Popular activities are usually fishing, diving and walking around the reef flats at low tide. 

Imagine their horror when aquarium specimen collectors hammers and chisels in hand go to work right in front of them at low tide, constantly day after day, week after week. Bad publicity is given to our hobby in local news papers, letters are written to the appropriate ministerial authorities, etc, etc, the appropriate authorities quite justifiably bring in laws to protect the reefs from aquarium specimen collectors. (A total ban now exists at Cleaverville beach forbidding collection of coral and associated aquarium fish).

It is not acceptable to collect in high recreational use areas with out the most stringent standards of sustainable collection. Conduct should always consider other users of the marine environment.

Similarly in a popular tourist location in WA (Quobba) it became popular for recreational and some commercial collectors from Perth to take corals and live rock, with a number of collectors taking large amounts adjacent to a marine sanctuary zone despite repeated heated confrontations with locals at this site. Naturally many complaints to government authorities were submitted. Still the behaviour continued. Now as a direct result a total prohibition on the recreational collection of live rock and corals is in place for the entire of WA. 

If collectors continue to behave in this kind of manner there can only be one out come total closure to access to all suitable locations to collect specimens for our hobby. 

Collection propagation enhancement.
Think about how you remove specimens. By fragmenting or partial removal, the same specimen can be perpetually harvested. 

Acropora species cuttings can easily be trimmed on the reef. The smaller specimens also travel far better and more cheaply than larger ones.

When removing a leather or soft coral from the reef always do your best to endeavor to leave at least a remnant behind. We have observed pieces even as small as a match head re-growing to a replacement from the one removed. Often a cluster of new leather corals results after the removal of one.

Tread lightly.
Minimize your impact. Look before you drop a anchor and be aware what your fins may be doing to the reef. So often the first 15 minutes of a dive we spend turning large corals back around the right way, after they have been overturned as boaties pull snagged anchors up.