"Fish bombers in the area of Komodo National Park knew all along that many environmental watchdogs, who play a central role in helping rangers and police track down the bombers, would be away all week at the coral reef symposium."

http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/10/30/blast.fishing.enn/index.html

Mike Kirda

On the week before the conference, I went diving in the islands called Tukang Besi, or Wakatobi. I had the unfortunate experience of seeing several craters left by bomb fishermen.

There is something completely overwhelming about seeing a crater in the reef. One that I spent the most time examining was on a reef flat, in about 1 meter of water at low tide. The crater was at least 12 feet round. The bottom was covered in coral rubble fragments. And by fragments, I mean FRAGMENTS. Nothing remains larger than 6-8 inches.

The rubble is basically completely unconsolidated. I estimate that this one particular crater was at least 3-4 years old due to the growth of a Stylophora pistillata colony on the one spot that was solid.

Imagine a reef flat with basically 100% coral cover. That was what it was like up until you got to the crater. Inside that 12 foot circle of destruction, there were three coral colonies. Two of those were recruits on unconsolidated fragments, and showed obvious signs of abraidment.

As the tide began to come back in, the currents increase, and you could watch the fragments move on the bottom.

Later on, at the conference, I got to see a presentation by Helen Fox, a PhD student who focused on blast fishing and reef recovery. Basically, she has sites tagged that were blasted up to 10 years earlier that show little to no signs of recovery. When she placed tiles there to study recruitment, she found more than enough coral spat settled. The problem is that the fragments do not provide a stable enough environment, and the abrasion kills the coral before they have a chance to grow. At the rate the reefs are being bombed, the reefs will never recover.

I also managed to catch another speaker whose name alludes me right now who studied the blast fishermen. They are typically 16-25 yr old males. They go out and 'fish' this way because it is so easy and they can make a lot of money quickly, which is then typically blown on booze and sex. The myth that blast fishermen are doing it as a last resort to feed their hungry families is exactly that- a myth.

While on the dive boat, I happened to see some wierd goings on in the distance. I put my 300mm lens on my Nikon and used it as a set of binoculars. Several boats wheeling around. Then I could see the tell-tale white specks- birds flying around above the water's surface... This is a sign of a tuna feeding. Within a few moments, the boats headed straight for this place, I could see several people stand up in the boats. I had a feeling something was going on... A few minutes later, the divers come back on the boat. While they were down, they heard two bombs go off. What I was seeing was a group of blast fisherman...

I wish I had easy answers... I don't. I do like Mark Erdmann's method though- pay the policemen to enforce the law. Pay them more than they get in protection money from the blast fisherman. Get a few convicted and get them in jail. That and stop eating fish. Lower the demand and you lower the pressure on the world's fisheries.

Dean Boulding

As it happens, I was also at the conference. Unusually for CNN, they seem to have got the context just about right this time. I don't know what was happening in Komodo last week -- I reluctantly had to turn down a one week dive trip there to get back to work.

Blast fishing (dynamite fishing, fish bombing, etc.) is not an efficient process, nor is it especially cheap. The fish generally are not sold for aquarium use, nor would they fetch top dollar on the food fish market. What often happens is that the fishermen end up in debt to the guy who sold them (on credit) the bomb material, or the cyanide, and have to catch fish to pay him back. An unattractive business, to be sure.

FWIW, there is not really any scientific evidence of cyanide damaging coral reefs. If we had to choose among cyanide, dynamite or global warming, most reef keepers would likely choose cyanide. This is not to say that it is a healthy practice, however. Nobody really knows what happens to the excess cyanide, nor what the effects of the cyanide might be on people eating the fish. Net caught or "hook and line" caught are much friendlier to the fish and the environment.

HTH, FWIW, etc.

Mike Kirda

Must have not caught Cervino's talk...

Cyanide is mixed to a solution of about 5,000-20,000 ppm, depending on how much it is diluted. Cervino showed that corals died when exposed to levels of only 600 ppm. Especially convincing were the series of photos- corals exposed to cyanide, completely white coral one day later, coral being overgrown with algae one week later...

Another paper that was presented focused only on the live food fish trade and cyanide. Their arguement was that cyanide usage for stunning the fish probably did not harm the corals too bad in the long run, because one boat could hit up a reef and clean out every grouper or Napolean wrasse in about a week, then leave. The corals that did die would provide space for new recruits soon enough... As you can imagine, it was a bit controversial. What I took away from it was that if you can separate the usage of cyanide for capturing aquarium fish and live food fish, the worst thing about the live food fish trade is that they overfish the reefs, and that the cyanide usage is of secondary concern. This obviously does not apply to the aquarium trade, because you can hammer the same reef repeatedly with cyanide.

Another sobering paper focused on Sabah, Malaysia. Some of the fish census surveys found 0.1 grouper per square kilometer. The only place they actually found grouper in any numbers was at Sipadan, which is in a marine reserve...

I would also add that cyanide is metabolized by the fish as they are kept in the live wells. You just wouldn't want to eat any fish that had been killed outright by cyanide usage, as it wouldn't be metabolized... It would be an interesting study to see what effects of eating these would be, and I don't think anyone has done it yet....

Dean Boulding

Actually, I did catch both the presentations you mentioned. Cervino's was interesting, and well done, but I don't think it addressed the issue of what is happening on the reef. James and Eric showed that much lower levels than commonly used can kill corals, but did not show how quickly the cyanide dissipates in the ocean. That's why I said there was not yet any scientific evidence from the wild. I probably should add a caveat, however when the "fisherman" goes around with a crowbar tearing the coral apart because it hid before he could completely stun it, the damage is evident.

I actually think this is quite important right now. USAID, the World Bank and others are spending a lot of money combating cyanide fishing, but I am not aware of what metrics they are using to monitor their success. If the money could be more effectively spent differently to help protect the reefs and fish, one would hope they would learn this.

I would also add that cyanide is metabolized by the fish as they are kept in the live wells. You just wouldn't want to eat any fish that had been killed outright by cyanide usage, as it wouldn't be metabolized... It would be an interesting study to see what effects of eating these would be, and I don't think anyone has done it yet....

Ever since the conference, I have been wondering if I have been an unwilling participant in your study at some seafood restaurant or another around here shiver