Why I will never have an aquarium

This beautiful little creature went missing, stolen by poachers. When a local diver, my good friend and dive buddy,  approached the poachers, they attacked him with a machete, all in broad daylight, in front of witnesses. Fortunately the diver was not injured but the poachers destroyed nearly $500 worth of camera gear because they thought he took a photo of their vehicle and license plate. (Fortunately someone else did get a photo the vehicle and license and posted them online.)

Why?

The obvious answer is the poachers were doing something illegal and wanted to protect their identity. But why were they poaching in the first place?

Salt water aquariums are a big business. While many, maybe even most, aquarium owners and dealers and suppliers are honest and aboveboard, some are not. Some owners want exotic or endangered species that are illegal. Some dealers try to get by on the cheap knowing they'll pay poachers less then legitimate suppliers.And where there is a market, there will always be someone to  fill it.

I told an acquaintance who works for the DRNA (the Puerto Rican Department of Natural Resources) about the incident at Crashboat and asked him why the DRNA didn't do more about poaching. His response was the DRNA is supposed to have someone at Crashboat all day every day but they are too short-handed to keep someone there. While that is possibly true, all too often I see too many DRNA agents who won't get out of their air-conditioned SUVs to actually DO asomething about anything.

Poaching is not just a problem here in Puerto Rico. In Hawaii in May, 2014, a woman, who worked for an organization that wants to totally ban harvesting sea life for aquariums, was scuba diving off Maui and recording the work of presumably legitimate aquarium suppliers gathering sea life. One of those divers attacked her and ripped the air supply regulator from her mouth.

And don't even get me started on deer poaching in Michigan or elephant tusks in Afirca!

Aquariums can also be a source of unintended consequences. When I first started snorkeling and diving here almost 10 years ago, we didn't know what a lionfish was. Now we see this destructive invasive species on nearly every dive and even snorkeling in the shallows.

They are beautiful feathery fish, very popular in aquariums. But lionfish, which can live for up to 15 years, are native to the western Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic and Caribbean. They arrived here courtesy of an aquarium in Florida destroyed during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Now they are all over the Atlantic coast, islands and throughout the Caribbean and Central America. All because of an aquarium spill.

I am fully aware of and freely admit how fortunate we are to live 300 meters from a spectacular living natural aquarium.

 And I do spend as much time as possible in our various "octopus's gardens."

And that is yet another reason I could never have an aquarium: After hanging out with these creatures in their homes, I could never confine them to a tiny tank in mine.