Neptune Aquatics

Ethics article - Skeptical Reefkeeping 7

Thales

Thales

Past President
BARcard
http://www.reefsmagazine.com/forum/reefs-magazine/139295-skeptical-reefkeeping-vii-look-ethics.html

Its out and I am excited because I have been working on it for a couple years - trying to find a way to make it 'hearable'. I would love BAR's honest thoughts about the article. I will most likely follow it up with a Socratic Dialogue to get at the meat of reefkeeping specific ethical issues.

Thanks!
 
My personal feeling is to leave it in the wild, take only pictures and memories. That being said, a trip to the local wholesale outfit becomes a rescue mission. For those of us lucky and skilled enough to have aquarium inhabitants for any significant length of time are only a small portion of all the animals harvested from their native environment. This is very unfortunate, but also very true. Most of the fish and corals captured just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...unfortunate.

With many patrons, I was asked: "I caught this, now how do what do I need to keep it alive?" My reply was: "If you love it, put it back and enjoy the fact that you live where you can see such things!"

More thoughts later...
 
Great reading material on such a difficult subject, Rich. I will try to find some time to give you feedback on the every day encounter I had in this area around the shop...
 
That was a great article. IMO, ethics are hard because they are relative. Every transaction or action not based on survival and need could be questioned. It's a complex issue to think through in a society that lives in relative abundance. Is there a line that can be drawn and if so where? hmmm Thanks for sharing.
 
Adding...
With the decline of species and their natural environment, private care is their last bastion of hope for the species to exist.

Great read on a complex issue. Thanks Rich
 
Very good article! A lot of great points.

One thing though:
You started out early talking strongly about the fight with anti-aquarium types trying to shut down the hobby.
For me, that set the tone that the article would have a lot to do with that, and that you would tie
the various concepts on ethics into that battle. Which would have been rather fun.
But then there was no mention of that fight later at all.
Perhaps that is in the follow up you mention?

Other common ethical issues that come to mind (See, you made me think about it)
The zoo theory : If you see these great creatures up close, you are more likely to care about them.
The tourism and value theory : The fish do bring in some income where they are found,
both due to collection and tourism. As they become worth more, the people that live there care
more. So less fishing, pollution, etc.
 
The article raises questions that we may not be comfortable answering, such as whether it is ethical to capture and kill creatures considered to be "pests," and whether it is right for us to be spending money on luxuries like this hobby when human suffering has not been eradicated. Humans are incredibly rational creatures and can rationalize almost anything. We need to get splashed in the face with water every now and then, as the article does.

One point about "prevailing" ethics is that it has the potential to stand in the way of knowledge and progress. It was not so long ago the conventional wisdom was that purchasing anemones and corals such as gonipora was unethical, since they were doomed to a slow death in captivity. The same was said for NPS. There is probably a distinction in ethical behavior for someone back then who wanted to push the boundaries with these organisms, going in with more knowledge and preparedness than the "average" person, but I am willing to bet there were a lot more failures than successes. Does this make the behavior more or less ethical?

BTW my favorite part was this:
Would Westerners eat as much meat as they do if they had to kill it themselves?
Click to expand...
It was similar to the question I asked myself that made me a vegetarian for 13 years, and also the same reason I was thrilled when my wife went chicken harvesting in Sonoma. We are so very removed from our food in modern society.
 
Hope this doesn't derail the focus on Rich's article but came across it just after reading and thought I would share. Maybe finding a balance is key. Doing things in a sustainable way and trying to do no harm if you can't do good.

http://reefbuilders.com/2013/01/29/live-coral-trade/
 
I saved this article for peaceful Sunday morning with a cup of good coffee reading and I am glad I did. It was thoroughly enjoyable and very much informing. You clearly have been thinking about this article for quite a long time as the delivery is very refined. Some sections seemed abbreviated or introduced and then not discussed (conservation for example). When does the book come out and will you sign it for me? :)

One thought I had was about "humanely administered euthanasia". For fish this seems to be something that few people think of or do correctly. Most of the members of this club know that clove oil can be used to euthanize fish but as recent discussion showed few of us keep it on hand and most don't know how to correctly use it. I've actually never even seen if for sale at any LFS. However, for most, the default method of euthanasia is "flush and forget" which is a really cruel form of euthanasia. Like feeder fish or food fish the only way that this can be morally "justified" is that it is soon forgotten or ignored.

One topic discussed on another recent thread, "fish so cheap that if it dies I'll just buy another" seems to be related. For both cases the sentiment to "preserve and protect at any cost" seems to be missing or grossly minimized. Encouraging people to value animals separately from the cost is the challenge. This is a cultural challenge and is really difficult especially in our primarily urban culture where dealing with wild animals and making decisions about them is too often entirely abstract. Even dealings with and decisions about food animals are abstract and easily ignored as David points out. Should we encourage people who have only an abstract and possibly poorly informed opinion to weigh in on ethical issues involving animals? (or any ethical issue for that matter). I find that for some causes the approach of attracting supporters primarily from the uninformed to be despicable. If the only supporters you can attract are those who, if it were a matter of life and death, would admit that they didn't understand the issue well enough to make decisions then you have failed in making your argument. This seems to be particularly the case with PETA which seems to both actively encourage uniformed support and at the same time attempts to hide from it's supporters the organization's less defensible and more radical positions.

Great article Rich! Please keep the series going!
 
Thanks everyone!

This was very general...the topic is so wide and there are only so many words per article. Deciding what to cut was tough.
Mare - I did make a change to the top of the article that may make it more clear that I was not trying to take on the anti aquarium people.
Erin - I don't know how much I buy the idea that private care is the last hope for animals losing their habitat. And I worry that that idea will take away efforts to make natural habitats healthy.
David - If I am understanding you, I think there is often an ethical lapse when someone 'tries' a difficult animal, but doesn't really do anything specifically to make a difference in that animals life. I've seen people try and slowly kill too many animals to feel really good about it. Oh - nems and gonis are still dying too much for my taste.
Jwicked- derail away! I am all for supporting local communities, sadly there seems to be a lot of green washing out there so be careful. Also the way the COC is set up, it is still almost impossible for the consumer to know where the animals are actually coming from.
Mike - out of site, out of mind is pretty scary, as is the cut flower mentality and the PETA extreme mentality.

:D
 
Neat article Rich, I really love the pictures you toss in there, who knew that womp rats needed saving :D

I love this quote though

“I just feel guilty ‘cause I know that that £7.50 odd that I spend most days on Cabernet Sauvignon could probably have been better spent buying some fucking Somalian village a pump… But that’s why I savour it. Nothing taste as good as that sip of wine you know could’ve inoculated an infant against tuberculosis. THAT’S a fucking guilty pleasure.”
Click to expand...

While I won't go quite as far as to explain my level of "guilty pleasure", it does sum up quite nicely the mentality that I work so I can have good things, I don't work so the masses of the world can be saved.
 
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