Hawai'i filling world's aquariums

By Adrienne Ancheta
Advertiser Staff Writer

Dennis Yamaguchi's 13-foot Boston Whaler skiff — a joke among his friends for its 30 years of antiquity and diminutive size — bobs on a glossy sea under the glaring sun a quarter mile from the Hale'iwa shore. A sea turtle, nearly a third the length of the boat, surfaces nearby for a gulp of air, looks at the boat curiously, then dives back toward the reef 100 feet below.

Wayne Sugiyama, owner of Wayne's Ocean World, stands in front of flame angels and lemon-peel angelfish from Christmas Island. He keeps the fish at his shop for three to five days before packaging and sending them around the world. Kyle Sackowski • The Honolulu Advertiser

Dead fish have no value in Yamaguchi's business.

His catch on this day will sell for about $300 if it arrives alive, and he'll be left with about a $200 profit after deducting his expenses.

Yamaguchi is one of more than 200 commercial aquarium fishermen in Hawai'i. His slow and careful methods have won praise from a worldwide organization trying to develop standards for the $200 million a year global industry. Aquarium fishermen in other countries, such as the Philippines and Indonesia, often use cyanide, which leaves a poisonous residue, to stun the fish.

"Techniques in Hawai'i are defining best practice," said Paul Holthus, director of the Marine Aquarium Council, which is crafting the worldwide industry standards.

To dive or to buy

Still, dive tour operators and some environmentalists criticize aquarium fishermen for depleting one of the state's most valuable resources. Hawai'i has no limits on the harvesting of aquarium fish, and some Hawai'i divers collect as many as 8,000 yellow tang a week.

Tropical fish catcher Dennis Yamaguchi docks his boat at Hale‘iwa boat harbor. The boat is loaded with buckets of fish and sea creatures that he finds on his offshore dives to sell to retail aquarium stores. Kyle Sackowski • The Honolulu Advertiser

A 1999 study of reefs off the Kona coast of the Big Island found that populations of several commonly collected species are depleted. The situation is serious enough that the Legislature has banned collecting fish for aquariums in certain areas.

This month, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources is considering tighter restrictions on the size of food fish caught and may set statewide limits for aquarium fish in the coming years. Aquarium fishermen say that's not needed because most of them set their own restrictions to avoid species that are nearly impossible to keep in captivity or considered essential to the reef ecosystem.

Aquarium advocates also remind critics that not everyone is willing to don a wetsuit and dive to the ocean floor to see the fish in their natural habitat.

"The marine aquarium industry has a huge value, especially for conservation, of exposing people to the beauty and wonder of the marine aquarium," said Holthus. "The (collectors') concern in much of the world is that there's this misperception that they're destroying the reef, but there's no money in dead fish and no fish in dead reefs."

That money varies depending on the fish. They can sell for $1.50 to $100 each wholesale, and retail for five times that much. In 1999, Hawai'i divers sold more than $885,000 worth of aquarium fish in wholesale markets, according to the most recent state numbers. The true figure may be double that because many divers don't report their catch.

The number of aquarium fishermen in Hawai'i has remained constant for many years, said Alton Miyasaka, an aquatic biologist with the state. While the job may seem appealing to dive enthusiasts, aquarium fishermen not only must endure the scorn of those who oppose the profession, but also a bleak future as improved technology in aquaculture makes it possible to raise tropical aquarium fish in tanks.

After working with small reef fish for the past two years, the Oceanic Institute developed techniques earlier this year that allow three of the most popular Hawaiian reef-caught aquarium fish — including the yellow tang — to spawn in captivity.

Within five years, aquaculture may begin to replace collecting marine life from the ocean as the preferred source of aquarium fish, say those in the industry.

In the meantime, Yamaguchi and his colleagues will continue to make their living off the reefs.

Skill and knowledge required

Yamaguchi began catching fish for his own saltwater aquarium as a teenager living in 'Aiea, and started selling his catch in 1970 when he found he could collect more than he needed. He snorkeled for fish until 1973, when he learned to scuba dive. By 1975, he was a full-time diver with his own boat. He has supported himself for more than 30 years by diving. In that time he has cultivated the ability to look at a spot and know whether he will get a catch.

He knows which way a fish will turn before the fish knows, said an admiring colleague.

Gathering live reef fish requires a level of skill and knowledge that deters many divers from entering the industry.

Catching the fish is only half the job. Getting them to the surface is always dicey. Fish must be decompressed to relieve pressure in their air bladders or they will explode as they are brought to the surface. That requires either a steady hand and a hypodermic needle or a lot of patience.

The hypodermic needle is used to pierce the bladder just below the fish's skin and release pressure before it is brought to the surface. The less-invasive method uses buckets with spring-loaded lids to bring fish to the surface slowly, similar to the way humans rest along a mountain trail to avoid altitude sickness.

Yamaguchi prefers the bucket method. Once he has the fish safely on shore, he takes them to Wayne's Ocean World in Halawa to collect cash.

Wayne Sugiyama runs one of the bigger import-export marine fish businesses in the state. With about 10,000 gallons of specially treated water circulating through long handmade plexiglass tanks, he is able to take in up to 1,200 fish a week. About half his fish are local and the others are imported.

Sugiyama then sends them off to a wide range of destinations, from the Waikiki Aquarium to collectors in Canada and Europe. In each case, delivering healthy fish is the name of his game.

"People don't remember the good fish," Sugiyama said. "They only remember that one bad shipment."

To make sure they arrive in good shape, Sugiyama keeps fish in his tanks for three to five days to empty their digestive systems. That way, they won't foul the water in their shipping bags. Prior to shipment, each fish is packaged in two plastic bags with a layer of newspaper between them to prevent punctures. The packages are then fit into styrofoam coolers that hold 11 to 15 bags of fish comfortably and shipped overnight to wholesalers and retailers. Only flights to Europe take more than a day.

"The idea is to have a quicker turnover, where fish can end up in a more natural environment faster," Sugiyama said.

"Some of our customers are high profile and set high standards," he said. "If you raise the standards of quality, everybody has to work harder. Then you don't get cheap fish and poor quality on the market."

Bruce Carlson knows the value of good quality fish. As director of the Waikiki Aquarium he has seen excitement and interest in marine life grow as people walk among the tanks of exotic fish.

Carlson remembers his first fish, a small freshwater black molly, which he got when he was five. At age 8, he graduated to a saltwater aquarium and hasn't been without one since.

"You can't get the same appreciation from a book as from an aquarium," he said. "If I saw a picture of a black molly instead of an aquarium, I probably would've forgotten them 40 years ago."

How many is too many?

The debate over harvesting aquarium fish is made more complicated by the difficulty of knowing how many fish there are. Tracking fish populations is complex in part because of their life cycles and habitat preferences. A reef may recruit large amounts of larval fish one year but not the next because of a change in weather or currents.

"The body of information upon which to draw conclusions is not large enough," Miyasaki said.

That has left charter divers and aquarium fish collectors to battle over how large a catch is a sustainable. The issue is particularly contentious on the Kona coastline, where fishermen, dive tour operators and aquarium collectors share about 147 miles of narrow reef.

Choquette of Dive Makai Charters said she noticed the impact aquarium collectors had on the reefs almost as soon as she began her business 27 years ago. By the early 1980s the difference was more obvious, she said, when populations of fish would diminish within a day.

"There's about 50 collectors here and that's about 45 too many," Choquette said.

Yellow tangs are particularly abundant off the coast of the Big Island. That's where divers catch as many as 7,000 to 8,000 a week.

The Lost Fish Coalition, a group of nearly 400 community and Mainland residents concerned about the population of fish in Kona, has organized efforts to regulate the industry.

Their work led to a community-based management system, the West Hawai'i Fisheries Council, which designated nine areas comprising 35 percent of the Kona reefs as fishery replenishment sites. Since Dec. 31, 1999, these areas were closed to aquarium fishermen.

William Walsh, a biologist with the Kailua-Kona aquatics division, said studies show that a minimum of 20 percent closure is needed to sustain reefs. Less than 1 percent is closed on the Big Island and less than .03 percent is closed in the state, he said.

"The simplest and most effective way for ensuring sustainable management," Walsh said, "is to set aside parts of the shoreline."