Letters

Shefa bans aquarium trade

As the highest commodity marine resource, ornamental reef fish exports have boomed throughout the Pacific region in the last ten years. This Œtrade' has been the subject of much deliberation given that the consequences of extraction are as yet largely unknown.

Vanuatu has become the most recent Pacific nation to experience this debate with the aquarium industry exporters currently operating un-regulated. Concern from the tourism sectors, subsistence fishermen, and the general public, has been significant. It is claimed that in less than two years coral reef systems around the south-west coast of Efate have been dramatically affected by ornamental fish extraction.

So great has been the concern of these stakeholders that the Shefa Provincial Council has since February suspended the issuing of licences and subsequent collection of reef fish and coral for the aquarium trade within the provincial waters until further research is conducted. This is to ensure the practice is sustainable and a management plan established (Honourable John Jack Kalotiti, president of Shefa Provincial Council.)

Shefa Province and Vanuatu as a whole, should be commended on taking this action and setting what will undoubtedly become a widely followed precedent for other Pacific islands.

Heidi Bartram.
bartram@kin.on.net

Whales compete with tuna?

As researchers who have been studying whales and dolphins in the South Pacific for over a decade, we were surprised and disappointed with your recent article, ŒWhales compete with fishermen for tuna.' We feel that besides its technical inaccuracies, the article paints an entirely false picture of the relationship between whales and fish in the South Pacific.

The most blatant distortion of the true situation was the photograph of a breaching humpback whale, with the caption: "Whales...great competitors for tuna". This is simply not true. Humpback whales do not eat tuna. Neither do other great whales. These species are filter feeders, which strain seawater through stiff hair-like material (baleen) in their upper jaw to catch small planktonic organisms such as krill, small shrimp-like invertebrates. Most importantly, like most of the great whale species found in the South Pacific, they only feed during the summer months when they migrate to the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean to feast on the abundant krill. They do not feed on tuna or other commercially valuable fish species while in Fiji or other tropical and subtropical waters. During their annual winter migration to these breeding and calving grounds, they live primarily off the fat they store from feeding in the Antarctic waters.

South Pacific Whale Research Consortium Secretariat,
COOK ISLANDS