Land Board Advances Plan to Re-Open Hawaiʻi Waters to Aquarium Pet Industry

Land Board Advances Plan to Re-Open Hawaiʻi Waters to Aquarium Pet Industry

Rulemaking decision follows the agency's prior vote to ban reef fish collection and intense public opposition to the capture and sale of native reef wildlife

Contacts

Mike Nakachi, [email protected], (808) 640-3871

Mahesh Cleveland, [email protected], (808) 599-2439

Last Friday, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources voted to advance the pet industry's plans to re-open Hawai'i's waters to the commercial-scale extraction and export of Hawai'i's native reef wildlife as aquarium pets. If finalized, the new regulations will allow hundreds of thousands of reef fish to be taken from West Hawaiʻi's already stressed coral reefs over the next five years. Commercial aquarium collection has been banned statewide since 2017.

The Board's Friday vote kicks off a public hearing schedule during which the public will have two opportunities to comment on the proposed regulations before they are finalized: an in-person public hearing in West Hawai'i Island (the industry's main target area), and a virtual statewide hearing. The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) will conduct the public hearings, and will have an opportunity to revise the proposed rules based on public testimony.

The Board's decision to move forward with rules to permit commercial collection comes despite a 2023 Board vote to prohibit commercial collection based on a community-driven proposal for a complete ban. Questions over the Board's authority to enact an outright ban, however, prompted DLNR to go against the community's proposal and instead propose allowing collection to resume. Before approving DLNR's rules for public hearing on Friday, the Board amended the proposed rules to remove food fish species and to reduce the annual quota for Yellow Tang from 200,000 to 100,000 fish.

"The Board's decision is disappointing, given the overwhelming weight of public testimony urging the Board to fundamentally rethink these rules before sending them out to the public," said West Hawai'i resident Mike Nakachi, who has advocated for decades to protect Hawai'i's reefs from the aquarium pet industry. "But we will be ready as a community to show up and testify in strong opposition to these rules; DLNR better make sure they have a big room and plenty time for these public hearings."

A recent poll conducted by Honolulu-based Anthology | FINN Research shows that 84% of Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi Island residents support permanently banning the commercial capture of reef fish for the aquarium pet trade.

"Despite the Board's suggested reductions in allowable catch, DLNR's rules still run directly contrary to public opinion and the Board's prior decision to accept a community-led ban proposal. We need the public to show up in force at these rulemaking hearings to remind DLNR what an unpopular policy they're standing behind and to push for better protections of our reefs and their inhabitants," said Mahesh Cleveland, an attorney with Earthjustice's Mid-Pacific office.

Robust populations of reef fish are crucial for supporting delicate ecosystems already weakened from ocean heat waves, pollution, and decades of commercial extraction. Despite commercial collection having been shut down statewide since 2017, the species and reefs targeted by the industry have not recovered.

Commercial collectors target juvenile native fish species, including species that local communities rely on for sustenance, trapping schools and individuals using fine-meshed nets. The fish are then bagged, shipped via air freight, and sold to pet stores around the world. Evidence suggests that most fish captured for home aquariums die within the first year of captivity. Left in the wild, these species would live much longer. In some cases, like the Yellow Tang, for more than 40 years.

DLNR has not yet announced specific dates for the public hearings, but said that the hearings will take place between January and March of 2026.

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