Banggai Cardinal Extint in the wild ???

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
I spent a couple hours talking with Alex Vasgelli oof the New Jersey Aquarium today. He was very nice and took a little bit to convey my intrest in his research.
I must start by saying he has started compiling his data from his dives (5-7 a day) lab research and time with the local people of banggai including the peope who do the collecting. Because of his ongoing research and the fact that a lot of his data is unpublished it would not be right for me to discuss most of what he spoke of untill he does publish so his points are made on his research since 1996. He is in the act of doing so and it is quite extensive.
The wild population will hold up untill he has completed his publications and the information contained within will help both conservation efforts and breeders immensly.
He has been doing this to bring about a conservation effort and the data will be presented for that reason.
At this point he will be communicating mostly with peers but he does seem to very open to people that share his enthusiam for not only Banggai Cardinals but all SW species.

I wish I could say more but that is his place for his research and it will help us all.

 

[SPC]

Thanks Dave for sharing that with us, did he mention anyway that we could help?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,

Untill he brings his work public there is not enough supporting data for much of anything to be done about wild Banggais. After it is made public there will be more avenues to persue. If he does not document his findings thouroghly, there is still not a lot because we cannot write the laws for foriegn countries. With accurate data we can all do something about importation into this country, but we will have to wait.