Biff, believe me. There are people who want to ban the hobby. These movements are just the beginning.
U.S. Considers Endangered Species Protection for 82 Stony Coral Species | Coral Magazine
There are crazies everywhere. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could even find people who want to ban ice cream.
That article mentions the Center for Biological Diversity which put together the petition to have them listed as endangered. The CBD (which is located here in Tucson) is a highly respected organization that has had success getting animals such as sea turtles and manatees listed as endangered. They are not by any means a controversial or activist organization. The article doesn't say that the hobby would be banned -- it says it would be illegal to harvest these corals from the wild and transport them into the US.
There are already corals that are listed as endangered, and even extinct in the wild, yet we still have them in the hobby, readily available and cheap, due to captive propagation. The green nepthea is one of them. You can get green nepthea almost anywhere, yet all of its species are endangered, and several of them are extinct in the wild and only exist in people's tanks anymore.
Like I've been saying, I don't believe that listing these corals as endangered would harm the hobby. They don't breed the same way mammals, for example, breed, so they don't fall under the same category as most other endangered species do, so corals that are captive bred most likely wouldn't fall under the same guidelines as wild corals. The most important things with these endangered species issues is precedent -- and there is already precedent set for endangered corals. The precedent is that it is illegal to harvest from the wild, but captive propagation remains unregulated and unrestricted. The captive vs. wild species are almost treated as two different species for the sake of legalities. Precedent would hold in this situation and would be followed. It would be impossible for species that millions of people have in this country in their tanks already to be regulated at the federal level, and they haven't tried with other endangered corals, so they won't try for these either.
It is important that these wild colonies be protected, and listing them as endangered does a great deal towards accomplishing that goal. Just look at all species of seahorses and bangaii cardinals -- both listed as endangered species. Does that mean we can't keep them in this hobby? Not at all. There are hundreds of websites that sell them and you can find them in any store. Clarion angels are listed as endangerd, yet even wild caught, they are still legally available in this hobby (for a price). Several species of clownfish are endangered, but you can still buy clowns for less than $10. And they are bred in captivity all over the place. Corals will be no different, but still affordable since they can be bred in captivity.
