Five years after clownfish gained popularity in the hit film, Nemo can now be found in Rhode Island. Clownfish are among the species being produced by the state’s first marine ornamental farm that grew out of an aquaculture initiative led by Rhode Island coastal resource managers.
According to media reports, demand for clownfish in the aquarium trade has risen sharply since the 2003 release of the popular animated film, Finding Nemo. Marine ornamental aquaculture species such as these tend to be much more lucrative than their food-fish cousins and their production facilities smaller, cleaner, and more contained, making them appealing to businesses and coastal managers alike.
“We were working with Roger Williams University to do research on aquaculture, and one of the questions they were looking at is where you get the greatest return in terms of dollars per pound of fish,” says Grover Fugate, executive director of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council. “The obvious one that pops up is the ornamental fish market.”
What also can come to mind when contemplating farming tropical fish and other ornamental species are problems associated with accidental or intentional release, turning a potential or former pet into an invasive environmental nightmare.
An expert panel doing a risk analysis of the issue in Florida recently concluded that “concerns over marine ornamentals expressed by the scientific community and amplified in public media communicate a degree of alarm that is not supported by evidence.”
“Florida’s been doing this a long time,” says Craig Watson, director of the Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory at the University of Florida. “Concerns that are raised about . . . [marine ornamental aquaculture] are because people don’t know about it yet.”
Despite the relative safety, the potential for release and water quality are issues that coastal managers need to look at when reviewing marine ornamental farming operations.
Growing Industry?
Tropical and ornamental fish for aquariums are one of the leading cash crops in the aquaculture industry, with a retail value approaching $1 billion annually, according to the website for Marine Ornamentals ’08, an international conference sponsored by Sea Grant and the Florida Tropical Fish Farms Association, among others.
Watson cautions that these numbers are “generated by the industry itself,” and that sales of marine ornamentals are “not shrinking, but they are not growing at the rate they were a few years ago.”
He also notes that marine ornamentals are not sold per pound but are sold individually, “so any analogy to food aquaculture only goes so far.”
Location, Location, Location
It is Rhode Island’s location between two major markets—New York and Boston—that makes it an ideal site for ornamental marine species aquaculture, says Brad Bourque, a partner in New England Marine Ornamentals, Inc., which received a permit from the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council for the first ornamental marine fish farm in the state.
“The market is very strong in the Northeast,” he says. “We did a study to quantify what the market was, and there is an eagerness from the ornamental store industry and individual [aquarium enthusiasts], who really want a sustainable, farm source of animals. The economics look very promising.”
Bourque gives the example of a flounder that takes two years to reach market size and sells for about $5 a pound compared to a clownfish that takes four to five months to produce and sells for $8 a fish.
Finding the Source
Marine and estuarine aquarium species, or ornamentals, include fish, invertebrates, and plants that are either caught from the wild or raised in aquaculture operations. The one in Rhode Island is producing clownfish, lined seahorses, and dottybacks. Coral and giant clams are examples of other successfully farmed species.
While ornamental aquaculture is increasing, most aquarium species continue to be collected from the wild, primarily in shallow coral reef ecosystems.
“The way they harvest marine ornamentals in the wild is often very destructive,” says David Alves, Rhode Island’s aquaculture coordinator. Poisons, such as cyanide, or explosives might be used, which are “destructive to the local ecosystem where the fish are naturally found, as well as to the fish themselves.”
Alves says that marine ornamental aquaculture typically is much better for the environment, and the fish tend to be healthier and have a higher survival rate.
Taking the Initiative
The Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council is the lead agency for permitting all aquaculture in the state, and New England Marine Ornamentals grew out of the Rhode Island Aquaculture Initiative, a three-year effort to advance the aquaculture industry.
In 2002, the initiative received $1.42 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for grants funding, and the Coastal Resources Management Council, Rhode Island Sea Grant, Roger Williams University, and the University of Rhode Island worked together to manage the initiative.
An initiative grant was used to fund a Marine Ornamental Aquaculture Research Center at Roger Williams University. The niche looked so promising that Bourque, who is the marine laboratory manager at Roger Williams, another faculty member, and a third partner decided to pursue a commercial operation.
Weather Permitting
The new commercial facility is located about three miles inland in an old mill in Warren, Rhode Island.
“It was a relatively easy permitting issue,” Fugate says. “It is a totally closed system, and there is no danger of escape. Even if there were an escape, none of the species they are growing would survive the winter.”
Bad Pet Owners
“That’s one of the hot-button issues of aquaculture,” Watson says. The introduction and establishment of nonindigenous marine ornamental species was such a concern in Florida that the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the University of Florida cooperated to produce a pathway risk analysis for all commercially available exotic marine and estuarine animals in Florida’s pet trade.
The risk analysis concluded that the benefits of the industry outweigh the ecological risks.
“It started out as a high-priority concern,” Watson says, “but it’s been almost taken off the list because it was determined the issue was with the hobbyist, not with the industry. Unless we’re ready to outlaw aquarium keeping, we need to look at educating the pet owner. We don’t want people dumping dogs and cats, either.”
Effluent Happens
In addition to the potential for release, water quality was a concern for Rhode Island coastal managers. Fugate says effluent from the permitted farm goes into the town sewer and treatment system. The farm also uses artificial seawater, which helps ensure the facility is disease free.
Watson notes that in Florida, effluent is also monitored for salinity and nutrient load, but “the discharge is very clean compared to food-fish aquaculture.”
“The difference,” he says, “is that ornamentals are usually much smaller operations. . . It takes hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish for a food-fish business to make money. A hundred thousand clownfish don’t weigh very much,” and much less effluent is produced.
Management Potential
While Watson doesn’t believe that marine ornamental aquaculture in any other state will ever come close to rivaling Florida as the industry leader, he does note that one of the largest coral farms in the U.S. is in Detroit.
If coastal managers do find themselves reviewing plans for a marine ornamental facility, Alves says, the “biggest thing is to look at the proposal and not just say, ‘It’s aquaculture. We’re going to have a problem.’”
Alves adds, “You need to look at it with an unbiased eye. There are a few things to look at, but basically this is good.”
For more information on aquaculture in Rhode Island, you may contact Grover Fugate at (401) 783-7112, or gfugate@crmc.ri.gov, David Alves at (401) 783-3370, or DAlves@crmc.ri.gov, or Brad Bourque at (401) 254-3737, or bbourque@rwu.edu.
Additional Information
The Rhode Island Aquaculture Initiative, www.crmc.state.ri.us/riai/
The Florida “Pathway Risk Analysis for Exotic Ornamental Marine and Estuarine Species,” www.floridaaquaculture.com/publications/Ornamental_Marine_Species_Pathway_Risk_Analysis_01553.pdf
Marine Ornamentals ’08, www.hawaiiaquaculture.org/docs/MO08%20bro%20July%2020.pdf
