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Review
. 2020 Nov 1;10(11):2014.
doi: 10.3390/ani10112014.

A Systematic Review of the Ornamental Fish Trade with Emphasis on Coral Reef Fishes-An Impossible Task

Monica V Biondo  1 , Rainer P Burki  2
Affiliations
Review

A Systematic Review of the Ornamental Fish Trade with Emphasis on Coral Reef Fishes-An Impossible Task

Monica V Biondo et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

The multi-billion dollar trade in ornamental fishes has rarely been reliably monitored. Almost all coral reef fishes are wild-caught, and few scientific analyses have attempted to elicit exact quantities and identify species involved. The consequences of the removal of millions of these fishes are poorly understood. This article collates and examines available information, including scientific studies and formal publications, in order to create a more accurate picture of this commerce. We demonstrate that it is almost impossible to analyse the trade in marine ornamental fishes due to a lack of data, and that available data for marine species is frequently combined with that for freshwater species. Figures range from 15 to 30 million coral reef fishes being traded annually, but could be as high as 150 million specimens. The global value of this trade was only estimated for 1976 and 1999 between USD 28-40 million. This review highlights the urgent need to introduce a specific harmonised system tariff code and for a global monitoring system, such as the Trade Control and Expert System already in use in Europe, in order to gather accurate and timely information on the number and species of marine ornamental fishes in commerce, where specimens originated, and whether they were wild-caught or captive-bred.

Keywords: Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES); Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES); coral reef fishes; freshwater ornamental fishes; international trade; marine ornamental fish trade; trade monitoring.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimated minimum and maximum number of marine ornamental fishes traded globally between 1984 and 2010 and imports to the United States for 2004/2005 (green) [5,8] and the EU (red) [11].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Global minimum and maximum value in billion USD of the freshwater and freshwater ornamental fish trade including accessories from 1980 to 2009 [7,16,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of export (minimum and maximum) and import value in million USD of the freshwater and marine ornamental fish trade, without accessories, from 1976 to 2014 [4,7,12,15,16,17,29,33,34,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54]. For marine ornamental fishes, the global import value in 1979 and 2001 (yellow) [1,37] and for the EU between 2000–2011 (green) [38] is shown.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) Average wholesale value in million USD of freshwater and marine fishes for the global export compared with import to Europe, the United States, and Japan [4,7,12,15,16,17,29,33,34,36,37,40,41,43,44,46,48,49,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59]. (b) Average wholesale value in million USD of freshwater and marine fishes for global import compared with exports from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka [1,12,15,16,17,20,29,33,41,44,50,52,53,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67].
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Wholesale value in million USD of exports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 1999 [17] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available. (b) Wholesale value in million USD of exports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 2014 [16] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available. (c) Wholesale value in million USD of imports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 1999 [17] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available [12,15,16,17,18,29,42,44,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90].
Figure 5
Figure 5
(a) Wholesale value in million USD of exports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 1999 [17] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available. (b) Wholesale value in million USD of exports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 2014 [16] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available. (c) Wholesale value in million USD of imports of freshwater and marine fishes by region in 1999 [17] compared with the sum of country exports for the same or closest year for which data were available [12,15,16,17,18,29,42,44,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90].
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