Best Marine Hobbyists/Scientists in the Industry

[Anonymous]

As an industry insider, Mary Middlebrooke would be an ideal person to contact about your article.
There has been a post by Gresham and others suggesting that she be not added to your list. That in itself should be the obvious reason why Mary should be on the top of your list. :wink:

Yes, and Eric Cohen

What did she do Wayne? She outed a secret written about in well over 30 articles 20 years prior to her outing it? <name reomved by request> is great, I'm not saying don't add her, I'm asking YOU a question that I'm sure you'll never answer just like every question asked of you. You can ask, but you can;t answer. How's your fight with the Canadian governement going over your countries rampant import of cyanide laced fish bought from the PU cyanide cartel?

 

[Anonymous]

As an industry insider, Mary Middlebrooke would be an ideal person to contact about your article.
There has been a post by Gresham and others suggesting that she be not added to your list. That in itself should be the obvious reason why Mary should be on the top of your list. :wink:

Yes, and Eric Cohen

YOu seem to think I profit from and want cyanide imports to continue. Your wrong on all accounts my snow blind friend. I am not in the livestock business, and I have never been for the use of cyanide. Try READING what I have written over the past 8+ years on this forum and you'll see this. YOu just have no clue :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

What have you done on your own home front regarding your countries rampant import of cyanide caught fish? Your country is aiding the cyanide cartel, how can you sit by and watch this happen?

You speak very little of your own countries "dirty little secret". You could be the male <name removed by request> of Canada. Expose it. Get your country to ban all Indo and PI fish where cyanide use is rampant? I say you blow that whistle so hard some mullets go flying! Go Canada!!!

Any answers Wayne?

 

[clarionreef]

Robert Straughn...A pioneer....the first great net [anti quinaldine ] collector from florida in the 60's. I learned a lot from his book in the very beginning.

Mr and Mrs Billy Causey.....both commercial net collectors from florida that gave the drug collectors a hard time...Billy now w/ NOAA

Romulo Purgatrio The first full time cyanide fisherman in the Philippines to fully embrace net collecting and rally his colleages to the cause sparking the net caught rebellion. He spoke English and proved invalueable to bridge the gap between fishers and out of town reformers.
He has been net collecting now since 1982.

Alan Briggs...Australian commercial net collector since 1967! And still collecting !
John Dreigerg....Perhaps in his time the most talented fish collector in the world...[if not briggs].....from 1973 and still collecting

Fenton Walsh...The longest running, full time, hands on, all around, best collector and handler/dealer in Australia .


Larry Sharon....savior of one dying or dull fish collecting station after another. When ya guaranteed wanna double your variety, volume and quality out in the pacific...who else ya gonna call?

If made primary consultants to MAC early on....any/all these guys coulda made it real...made it work...and made the big difference.
Of course....they weren't and the rest is history...or a lack thereof.
I have listened and learned from them all and consider them representatives of the best efforts the trade has ever known in achieving the loftier goals we all say we want.
However....each one of them is allergic to b.s. and for that reason alone, may never be called upon.
Steve

 

[bobimport]

Walt smith? Forest? your jokeing right?


Bob

 

[MaryHM]

Please delete Mary Middlebrook from any current or future lists or discussions.

Thank you,
Mary Middlebrook

 

[bobimport]

Please take my name off also

Bob Kelton

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Romulo Purgatrio The first full time cyanide fisherman in the Philippines to fully embrace net collecting and rally his colleages to the cause sparking the net caught rebellion. He spoke English and proved invalueable to bridge the gap between fishers and out of town reformers.
He has been net collecting now since 1982.

I agree with S. R Romulo Purgatorio is a very important addition to the list

Also, Dr. Don McAllister , who in his life time did many important things to protect coral reefs in developing countries. Dr. McAllister mortgaged his house, twice, to finance net training in the Philippines.

jaime

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Thank you all once again. Just a quick word regarding the purpose of this thread--by your very involvement in a forum discussing the industry, you have indicated that you have a stake in the industry. I am therefore interested in your opinions about who should go on the list, but I am not interested in hearing who you think should NOT be on the list. Not only is it not productive at this point, but that's where my skills and talents come in as a researcher/writer. Through the process of interviews and research, I will narrow this lengthy list down to a core group of leaders (both scientists and hobbyists) to profile in a 3,000-word article discussing the evolution and future of the industry. Once I have a draft, I will be soliciting peer review. Thanks again for your contributions here.

 

[PeterIMA]

Jaime, I agree that Dr. Don E. McAllister (formerly with the Canadian Museum of Nature) deserves recognition from the marine aquarium hobby. He was the President of both IMA-Canada and IMA-USA (at different times). In 1986, I accompanied Don (along with Steve Robinson and Dr. Vaughan Pratt) to the Philippines where we got the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries to legalize the use of fine-mesh barrier nets for collecting marine aquarium fishes as an alternative to cyanide fishing. Don was always committed and provided advice and leadership that put IMA on the world stage. He later formed Ocean Voice from IMA-Canada and regularly corresponded to people worldwide from collectors, scientists, hobbyists, to politicians. He devoted over 20 years to seeking constructive ways to end cyanide fishing.

He created several bulletins (Sea Wind and Biodiversity). His article about the impacts of trawling in Sea Wind (in 1995) spurred a world-wide movement to ban trawling because of its damage to benthic habitats. About, two years ago I gave an invited talk at the American Association of Science meeting in Seattle. The deep sea corals group has created a Don McAllister medal that is awarded annually to scientists for their research and efforts to conserve deep sea corals (non photosynthetic). So, in addition to his long career in fish taxonomy, Don changed the world with regard to marine conservation and with regard to spurring action on a wide range of issues for protection of marine habitats and conservation of marine resources.

Peter Rubec

 

[dizzy]

Jadefox,
How about telling us who you are and where this is going to appear once it has been peer reviewed.
Thanks,
Mitch

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Jadefox,
How about telling us who you are and where this is going to appear once it has been peer reviewed.
Thanks,
Mitch

Hi, Mitch.

I am a fulltime freelance writer and aquarium hobbyist. I came to this topic because I recently wrote a piece about the mid-nineteenth century in England when the so-called first sustainable marine aquarium was created. I was fascinated by the interaction between hobbyists and scientists at the time and how that evolved into shaping the industry.

Obviously the industry faces a number of significant stressors today, and I have been somewhat disappointed by the lack of ongoing, open and constructive dialogue from within the industry itself. It seems this forum is as close as we get to an open dialogue with an Internet presence, and so often the good discussions and important issues turn into people attacking one another. Anyway, when I write, I always write with the intent of promoting the dialog more than any one agenda, and that is what I am doing here.

Thanks for asking. Oh, and the piece is being written on spec, so I don't know where it will eventually be published.

 

[dizzy]

Jadefox my name is Mitch Gibbs and I still think you should tell us your name if your going to come here and ask questions like that. I'm sure you will find that some people in the scientific community would not like to be known as promoting marine fishkeeping to the home hobbyist. A while ago one of the more deserving hobbyists on your list was telling me how the Monteray Bay Aquarium had pulled all of his books out of the gift shop. He told me he inquired as to why and was told that the new management there did not want to be seen as promoting the aquarium hobby to private individuals. In other words they thought it was ok for public aquariums to keep marine fish/invertebrates, but not the average Joe.
Mitch

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Jadefox my name is Mitch Gibbs and I still think you should tell us your name if your going to come here and ask questions like that. I'm sure you will find that some people in the scientific community would not like to be known as promoting marine fishkeeping to the home hobbyist. A while ago one of the more deserving hobbyists on your list was telling me how the Monteray Bay Aquarium had pulled all of his books out of the gift shop. He told me he inquired as to why and was told that the new management there did not want to be seen as promoting the aquarium hobby to private individuals. In other words they thought it was ok for public aquariums to keep marine fish/invertebrates, but not the average Joe.
Mitch

Sorry. I did not intentionally leave my name out of the equation--I just didn't think it was particularly relevant. My name is Ret Talbot, and you can find out more about some of the writing I do at www.RetTalbot.com. I have done some consulting and writing for both scientists and people in the industry, and I am certainly aware of the tension there. My "agenda" is far more innocent on this piece. As I mentioned earlier, I was intrigued by these two "hobbyists"--both 19th century women in England--who attracted the attention of the scientific community. The exchange between hobbyist and scientist interested me, and I want to do a piece about what that relationship is like today.

On a side note, I am always surprised by the amount of distrust and fear in this industry. You would be interested to see the number of PMs I've gotten for "off-the-record" comments on this piece. I always protect the confidentiality of my sources, but I am not giving anything away by saying that people are really out to get each other within the industry rather than looking at the big picture. There are lots of external stressors on the industry right now, and those need to be dealt with, in my opinion, by the industry as a whole. There needs to be a lot of education done, and certainly reforms need to happen, but based on some of the vehement PMs I've received, I fear the industry may implode. Where is the forward-thinking leadership that will effectively market and brand the marine ornamental industry of the future--an industry that is sustainable, ethical, profitable, and fun?

I'm rambling...lol. It's nice to meet you Mitch.

 

[dizzy]

Nice to meet you too Ret. Good luck with your article.
Mitch

 

[Ret_Talbot]

I'm sure you will find that some people in the scientific community would not like to be known as promoting marine fishkeeping to the home hobbyist. A while ago one of the more deserving hobbyists on your list was telling me how the Monteray Bay Aquarium had pulled all of his books out of the gift shop. He told me he inquired as to why and was told that the new management there did not want to be seen as promoting the aquarium hobby to private individuals. In other words they thought it was ok for public aquariums to keep marine fish/invertebrates, but not the average Joe.

In the process of doing my research, the communications director at the Monterey Bay Aquarium said the following in response to my inquiry about the above incident (the MAC comment interested me, but that's not a discussion for this thread...lol):

"I checked with our bookstore management and as far as they know, we’ve not carried home hobbyist books in recent memory. That’s not because of a philosophical objection to home aquariums with marine life, but because such books don’t appeal to a broad enough segment of our visitors to warrant devoting shelf space to them. I have no idea where the information originated that prompted your initial question.

"Many of our husbandry staff are themselves home aquarists, so we don’t have an institutional bias against home aquariums. And one of our folks spoke on our white shark project at a national conference of home aquarists a few years back.

"As long as hobbyists follow guidelines of the Marine Aquarium Council for sustainable sourcing of animals for their exhibits; and as long as they don’t attempt to keep sharks or other animals that will outgrow the aquariums, we’re supportive of hobbyists."

 

[dizzy]

Ret I'm glad to hear the communication director and the giftshop manger have nothing against home aquarists. If I recall the conversation correctly the person who made the decision on pulling the book was higher up the ladder than that. Look I'm not interested in dragging the author into this controversy so let's just say MBA is ok with people keeping MAC certifed organisms and leave it at that.
Mitch

 

[dizzy]

Ret I'm glad to hear the communication director and the giftshop manger have nothing against home aquarists. If I recall the conversation correctly the person who made the decision on pulling the book was higher up the ladder than that. Look I'm not interested in dragging the author into this controversy so let's just say MBA is ok with people keeping MAC certifed organisms and leave it at that.
Mitch

PS
When you write an article such as you are working on, you also run the risk of glorifying people with a not so glorious past from an environmental standpoint. I suspect that is what some of the people have been trying to tell you in the private email. When you use the term top industry people, it often equates who has made the most money from taking the most things out of the ocean.

 

[Ret_Talbot]

PS
When you write an article such as you are working on, you also run the risk of glorifying people with a not so glorius past from an environmental standpoint. I suspect that is what some of the people have been trying to tell you in the private email. When you use the term top industry people, it often equates who has made the most money from taking the most things out of the ocean.

Thanks for that, Mitch. Hopefully my research will reveal who deserves the glory and who does not. It's certainly not up to me to judge--I want to simply present facts and encourage dialogue. I used the term top industry people because although the "marine ornamental industry" is not particularly cohesive or unified at present, it is an industry nonetheless insofar as an industry is an umbrella term encompassing all stakeholders. As such, I am looking for the top people in the industry representing the scientists and representing the hobbyist. I am interested in collectors, exporters, importers, and retailers, but for the scope of this article, I'm only interested in those people insofar as they are either scientists or hobbyists helping to lead the industry.

 

[dizzy]

If anyone is leading the industry it must certainly be Race Foster.