The Horrific Way Fish Are Caught for Your Aquarium—With Cyanide
Up to 90 percent of saltwater aquarium fish imported to the U.S. are caught using cyanide. A new petition is calling for the government to crack down.
They’re in your dentist’s office, in restaurants, hotel resorts, and homes all over the world. The saltwater aquarium, with its bright coral and even brighter fish, brings a piece of the wild into your living room.
But do you really know where those saltwater fish come from? A full 98 percent—yes, almost all—species of saltwater fish currently can’t be bred in captivity on a commercial scale. They must instead be taken from ocean reefs. And how is that done?
Most of the time, with sodium cyanide.
Sodium cyanide is a highly toxic chemical compound that many fish collectors in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia (the largest exporters of tropical fish) crush and dissolve in squirt bottles to spray
