It was an ordinary day. Reading a few of my emails when I came across an email from a good friend who lives on the island of Sint Maarten which is the Dutch side of the St. Martin/Sint Maarten Island in the Caribbean Sea. My wife, Carol, and I had the pleasure of meeting Barbara many years ago while on the island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten. We first met her husband who owned a store in Sint Maarten and after telling him that we were from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, told us that his wife grew up in Pennsylvania. One thing led to another and we eventually had the chance to meet with Barbara. We still keep in touch with Barbara from time to time, and a recent email that I got told me of the plight of the parrotfish in the Caribbean islands. She sent me a link that I could visit to see about the parrotfish and why we should do all we can to stop the eating of the parrotfish. The fish is a beautiful fish, but it's loss due to human consumption is causing it to become extinct. That has to stop! The following bit of information tells of the help the parrotfish is to the welfare of the ocean and its reefs. Read the story and you will see why we need to stop eating the beautiful fish. Hope you too can help somehow with the destruction of the parrotfish population. Thanks Barbara for all you do to help with the preservation of wildlife, including those in the ocean.
It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
The parrotfish is a colorful, tropical creature that spends about 90% of it’s life eating algae off coral reefs. This almost-constant eating performs the essential task of cleaning the reefs which helps the corals stay healthy and thriving.
The parrot fishes’ digestive system, which includes more teeth inside their throats breaks down coral bits into the white sands that make South Pacific beaches famous. Known as bioerosion, this process helps control algae populations and create new surfaces for baby corals to attach to and grow. But just how much sand can a parrotfish produce? Surely it can’t be enough to really make whole beaches? Think again. Scientists estimate that a single Chlorurus gibbus parrotfish can poop out more than 2,000 pounds of sand each year! Parrotfish live in reefs all around the world, but they all generally live about 5-7 years and grow to 1-4 feet in length. They typically feed during the day and sleep—by wrapping themselves in a safety cocoon made of mucus or by finding a hiding place in the coral—at night. Coral reefs face a lot of threats, of course—from climate change to pollution to invasive species. Restoring parrotfish populations, herbivores that keep seaweed in check on the reefs, could pay big dividends in restoring reefs. If it weren’t for parrotfish, corals would quickly become suffocated by seaweeds on many reefs around the world—which is what is happening in the Caribbean and in the Pacific.
In the South Pacific, this is largely due to overfishing of bumphead parrotfish. Bumpheads have an unfortunate habit of sleeping in natural aggregations at predictable locations in shallow water, meaning that fishermen can quickly find and spear dozens of them at once. Parrotfish are considered a delicacy in many countries and can also be sold abroad by falsely labeling the meat as grouper—for which there is higher demand. Due to these fishing pressures, bumphead parrotfish are now extinct in Guam and heavily depleted in Fiji, Samoa, Papua New Guinea and other parts of the Solomon Islands. The Nature Conservancy is addressing the problem by partnering with other organizations to make the public aware of the consequences of eating parrotfish.
How could you eat one of these?
Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteBarbara