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RHINELANDER - Locally it’s common knowledge that Rhinelander-based Drs. Foster and Smith is the largest pet supply catalog company in the country. With around 600 employees, it’s one of the largest employers in the Northwoods.
However, few realize that in addition to warehouses stocked with pet treats and toys, the Foster and Smith complex houses an enormous marine life facility, where some of the most beautiful and exotic coral and sea creatures in the world flourish year-round.
Foster and Smith’s foray into the aquaculture and marine life market began in 2002 with the purchase of Ohio-based LiveAquaria, hiring founder, Kevin Kohen, as the director of the new Rhinelander facility. Fueled by an explosion in fish tank filtration and lighting technologies in the 1990’s, the marine aquarium market grew rapidly. Previously keeping salt-water tanks was prohibitively difficult, making it accessible only to the most advanced hobbyists.
With the growth of the market, Foster and Smith began exploring the possibility of breeding captive coral and other rare marine species in their own aquaculture plant, or coral farm. At the time of its construction in 2005, Foster and Smith’s aquaculture coral and marine life unit was one of the first of such farms in the country.
Striving for Sustainability
Kohen said the main challenge the small, but growing marine life industry faces is becoming self-sustaining. “We’re trying to offset some of this wild harvest with desirable species of coral, grown in large quantities, to be able to supply the United States with captive grown coral,” he said. But while LiveAquaria hopes to stoke the demand for cultivated coral, it is not seeking to completely replace the wild harvest coral industry.
Although LiveAquaria goals include mitigating pressure on threatened coral reefs, Kohen said there are a lot of misconceptions about the threat the aquarium industry poses to coral reefs. “When done right, selective harvesting of wild coral can benefit the reef,” he said, “similar to the effect selective logging can have on the health of a forest. It’s a sustainable fishery when it’s done properly. It’s very controlled, it’s highly regulated, and it can even be beneficial to coral reefs. It also provides a trade for all these people that live in these remote regions have no other means to make an income, except for their resources.”
The real threat to coral reefs, according to Kohen, is the impact of expanding populations in already densely populated areas like Indonesia, Bali, and the Philippines. “In certain, very populated areas coral reefs are not being properly managed. These people need to eat and they take sticks of dynamite and use percussion to kill the fish. The main problem is that it destroys the reefs that provide the habitat. With no habitat there is no recruitment, and there are no more fish.”
Fortunately, in other, less populated areas in the world reefs are managed carefully. In these areas the fishery is very small, focusing on rare and appealing specimens, with only a few collectors and export stations. These remote fisheries supply Foster and Smith’s LiveAquaria and others with almost no added pressure on the habitat.
Hobbyists as Scientists
The work of the aquarium industry has yielded benefits for aquarium hobbyists and marine scientists alike. Kohen’s office is lined with academic tomes on marine biology. Nevertheless, he said that a lot of exciting discoveries in the field aren’t coming from books. He said that ever more sophisticated hobbyists and the aquarium industry that supports them has added greatly to the scientific body of knowledge.
In fact, “the aquarium industry has helped the scientific community with an incredible number of discoveries,” said Kohen. “If you talk to some old scientists, they don’t believe corals can be kept alive in captivity. We’ve broken so many barriers as aquarists to help scientists and reef ecologists, and to discover new species of fish. It’s a win-win for aquarium people and the scientific community.”
Also, the internet has helped link aquarium enthusiasts, increasing the pool of knowledge through forums and user generated informational sites. “There are a lot of message forums for aquarium animals by very dedicated people posting every day. You learn a lot from forums, current information as opposed to some of these books that are out of date. Things change rapidly in this hobby,” said Kohen.
These sites make it easier for aquarists to foster flourishing tank environments, and to push the boundaries of captive marine life cultivation. And as aquarists become more successful, they often find themselves with an overabundance of a particular variety of coral, spurring them to organize “frag swaps,” meetings to exchange fragments of their most successful coral specimens.
Interest in aquariums turns hobbyists into amateur scientists and aquariums into laboratories. In order to keep up with the increasing demands of hobbyists, the aquarium industry has worked hard to improve tank and lighting technology to better replicate native reef environments. In particular this technology, along with an ever more refined understanding of how to meet the needs of coral in captivity, has allowed LiveAquaria to propagate some of the hardiest and most beautiful captive coral in the world.
Tanks and Tots
Before making it his profession, Kohen was a life-long aquaria hobbyist. His parents’ support of fish tank keeping was essential to his career path. “If my parents hadn’t encouraged this hobby when I was a child, there’s no way I would be so interested in coral reef sustainability today,” he said.
Kohen also said that aquarium keeping is an excellent way to get young people interested in, and applying science, since they need to understand chemistry, biology, physics and math to keep a healthy fish tank. He said the gratification of cultivating a successful aquarium gets children hooked on science, and it’s a relaxing hobby.
LiveAquaria maintains a detailed informational website, and has an experienced staff on-site to answer aquarium related queries.
Although the recession has slowed the growth of this high-cost hobby, Kohen said he’s confident the enthusiasm of aquarists will ensure a strong future for LiveAquaria.