• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

[Announcement]: Ceph Care Ethics

I have always celebrated the fact that the hobby of keeping cephalopods in the home aquarium is a new and exciting hobby. Now, I don't know anymore?
 
Thales said:
you might want to make the entire ceph care section for members only. Perhaps keep some of the articles public, but not the discussion.
This is exactly what I am weighing! Not "Supporters" only, but "members" only. By the way, it's not the "pretty" ones that are highlighted in our code of ethics, it's the "octopuses whose populations are threatened or whose status is not known".

Colin, your post could mean a few things, and I always value your input, so I'll ask. Is your statement "Now, I don't know anymore?" a bit tongue in cheek, as if to say, "this thread has gotten ugly, what has happened to our community?", or are you literally saying, "I used to think that cephs in the home was great, but now that I know more about the trade and am more sensitive to the ethical concerns surrounding it, I'm really not sure that keeping cephs at all is a good thing." Or both?

EDIT: By the way, for those who may not know, Colin has serious ceph-keeping credentials and is a Countryside Ranger in Scotland. Colin has advanced diplomas in both Fish Biology & Fish Health and Water Quality & Filtration, and is a licensed amphibian worker. I would not question his authority on animal care ethics in any regard (in fact he basically wrote the code). I am just trying to understand whether his comment was one of frustration regarding the tenor in this forum, or whether through his advanced learnings he has taken on a different view on ceph keeping in the home?
 
The later Tony,

It seems that there is a very fine line. I have to add my weight 100% to keeping captive bred cephs where possible.

Also, I have been very aware of the trade for a long time, however now I work in the conservation side of things rather than zoos etc, I have a more commited outlook on the husbandry of animals and the conservation of their natural habitats.

My main hobby is keeping aquatic animals at home, but I won't stop doing that anytime soon. However, I will not keep an indvidual animal or species which is threatened in the wild which I have no chance of breeding to pass on their young to prevent the capture of more wild animals of their species. I will not glamorise the keeping of animals for the sake that they are rare.

A species of animal which is well studied and not considered endangered is a good candidate for people to keep as a pet.

A species of animal which has no concrete evidence of wild populations, no chance of reproduction and no value other than pretty pictures should not be kept by amateur keepers.

I just read the EDIT Tony and to be specific, I havnt refined my code on ceph keeping ethics, more I have became more vocal. I still believe that anyone wishing to keep any animal, be it a stick insect, tiger, ant, whale shark or anything should carefully research any animal.
 
tonmo;91820 said:
This is exactly what I am weighing! Not "Supporters" only, but "members" only. By the way, it's not the "pretty" ones that are highlighted in our code of ethics, it's the "octopuses whose populations are threatened or whose status is not known".

I don't think you mean just octopus! :biggrin2:
I believe that bandensis population status is not known in the wild, and we certainly don't know what effect the collection of the vast amounts of eggs we saw coming in to wholesalers last year has had on that population.

For my money, I think either all public discussion or all member discussion is the way to go. I don't think trying to police what is acceptable does anyone any good, and having open discussion about both 'run of the mill' and 'exotic' species with membership takes care of many of the issues brought up in the past week.



I think it is important to remember that ceph keeping is only a tiny part of the marine ornamental trade, and that trade can be pretty sickening once you look under the covers. Any connection to it, from hobbyist to collector, can be hard to ethically justify - even an all propagated coral aquarium can be hard to justify. Like I said in another thread, I would not be surprised to find myself out of it completely in the future. I think there is real possibility for change in the near future, but it is going to be an long, ugly road and I don't know how long I will have the money or strength or drive to continue down it.


EDIT - just to add, but I am sure it is clear, I think that keeping all the discussion public would be my preference. :biggrin2:
 
I don't think you mean just octopus! :biggrin2:
Definitely agreed! Noticed that. Will edit to "cephalopods".

As you can see, this discussion in particular is thriving! Maybe not all good, but there is a good discussion in here. I wouldn't want to suppress this -- let me quickly say that I am a strong advocate of "free speech"; I've run this open forum for 7 years now (and used to manage online community message boards and Websites as a product manager for Prodigy Services Company back in the ice ages ('92-'98) -- for the first three years there were no browsers, it was a proprietary service!) -- uh, anyway, enough memory lane there... point being, I've studied this stuff for a long time and I am not seeking to apply an unwarranted "heavy hand". But I am eager to take a stance in the interests of cephs.

I think it is important to remember that ceph keeping is only a tiny part of the marine ornamental trade, and that trade can be pretty sickening once you look under the covers. Any connection to it, from hobbyist to collector, can be hard to ethically justify.
That's my new personal discovery. :smile: I do realize that ceph-keeping is a relatively small piece of a bigger trade, but the idea here is that threads and videos demonstrating their momentary beauty when successfully held in captivity help promote it, and help feul the ceph aspect of the trade. I'd prefer we admire them in their natural habitat.

And when you think about the food industry, cephs brokered for trade is really miniscule. I don't have stats, but I have conventional wisdom, and I have all y'all (as Greg would say).

TONMO.com is not an activist site, so we're not about to start an Octopus Meat is Murder campaign, but I wouldn't shut it down if one started. :wink:. When Octobot finds new threads about ceph recipes (which is every day), I delete them. That is not "censorship" (at least not in the "bad" sense); that is content control.

There are certain topics that are within TONMO.com's domain, and others which are not. If they're not, they are off-topic and threads are deleted, or moved, or locked. What has changed here is that the advocacy and promotion of keeping certain species is basically off-topic for TONMO.com (and indeed, not condoned per our code of ethics).

I'm still weighing the right way to enforce; we have many options -- I am very confident we will work this out in the right way -- "status quo" will not do, however!
 
When a library bans books from it's shelves, it's censorship. What is the difference here? Is TONMO destined to become the Vatican library, open only to those with the proper clearance, the proper faith or currency?

How about this. So now the information is gone, and so are the voices of dissent. So now, when someone wants to find out about wonderpus and mimics, they will end up somewhere else because there is nothing here for them. Who will they ask, their LFS, internet FS, some quack done the street that has a turtle in a bathtub? Where else will they get the right information, which is "This is a difficult and little understood animal, cherish it, but please do not take them home."

Tony, I understand that you have to make the final decision regarding the image that you want the site to have. All I am asking is that it is one that believes in education over censorship. There is nothing that we can do about the population of humans on the planet, which is the REAL problem.

I understand the problem of lurkers, the internet is not the only place that they exist. But what kind of example is it to set by keeping them in the dark. The kind of people that you are most worried about are going to do whatever they want to do anyway, regardless of the code of ethics, which I fully support. But Thales bought his mimic BEFORE they were posted.

I think the content should be made available, because if people don't know these amazing animals are out there, they will never even know that they need support. Put a page in between with the code of ethics, and explain why you feel the way that you do about it, and make it clearly understood that you do not support it, but you MUST educate. You cannot simply lock the information away in a vault. Guns are much more dangerous than one man with one octopus, but responsible gun owners make the world safer. Responsible ceph keepers can help the oceans.
 
When a library bans books from it's shelves, it's censorship. What is the difference here?
TONMO.com is not a government "public" agency or a government "public" Website. It's privately owned by me, and I set the parameters for the content. Just like a magazine, or Fark.com, or any other "managed" community site.
How about this. So now the information is gone, and so are the voices of dissent. So now, when someone wants to find out about wonderpus and mimics, they will end up somewhere else because there is nothing here for them. Who will they ask, their LFS, internet FS, some quack done the street that has a turtle in a bathtub? Where else will they get the right information, which is "This is a difficult and little understood animal, cherish it, but please do not take them home."
I contemplated this before taking action. The fact is that there are countless lurkers who will have seen that thread, and despite any voices of dissent, the availability of the content, videos and images is likely more damaging than suppressing it. Consider that we could also have debates about delicious octopus recipes, with videos showing how to kill and prepare an octopus, and others could cry out in horror and dismay, but the poster could go right along describing their nightly dinners and preparations. Should this thread be allowed on TONMO.com? Well, I'm sure there are tons of opinions on that -- but again, TONMO.com is a private property -- and my answer would be no, I wouldn't allow it, I'd suppress it.

I do not aim to be trigger-happy or oppressive with content, so I want to assuage any concerns that we're going to delete or lock mass threads. But will actions be taken against threads which promote, or even discuss, the how's and the where's and the what's of keeping rare species such as mimics/zebras/etc.? Yes... I regret that it is upsetting to some but it's definitely the policy for TONMO.com.

By the way, I do realize that the code of ethics came out AFTER Thales' thread was in full gear. I need to be clear that this action was in no way a reprimand of Thales in any way. It was an enforcement of policy. I had no expectations that Thales should have been able to predict this policy. In the truest form, nothing personal.

There are options with regard to what actions are taken, and I'm open to constructive ideas, but I will ask everyone to understand the parameters of what TONMO.com does and does not support and condone -- and I think the code of ethics lays that out clearly. I'm open to input on enforcement and control of this, so as not to further the damage.

I agree to some extent that responsible ceph keepers can help the oceans -- but there is a difference between sharing that info with "anyone on the street" and sharing it within a community of experts. Remember, my action was to MOVE it to the Supporters' forum. I did not intend to remove it. I only removed it because Thales asked me to (and I didn't have to, by the way, but I did out of deference and respect), because he wasn't comfortable putting it behind the "paid" Supporters barrier.

I am considering whether a separate, non-pay but member-only forum is something we need to employ to allow the free exchange of information but in a controlled manner.
 
When I was managing a bookstore there were a lot of issues about censorship, people coming in and demanding that certain books not be sold, things like that. I am seriously disturbed, in general, about things like that, and every year I would do a big window display on banned books, which included the Bible, by the way. (All of which were books that we carried, I never had to order any of them.) That being said, there were some books which would not be displayed at a child's eye level, and if a 15 year old came in and wanted to order "The Anarchists Cookbook", I made sure that his parents knew that it contained, among other things, instructions for making bombs. Was I censoring his reading? Sure, but I didn't want any kid blowing himself up. Sometimes we have to weigh the potential damage. I didn't tell the kids they couldn't get the book, but once the parents saw the book, or found out what was in it, none of the kids had that book. I think it makes sense to keep the enticing videos, pictures and information "above the eye level" of the kids and occasional mental incompetents who lurk here without a clue about what is involved in responsible ceph care, and are more concerned about the cool factor than they are about the welfare of any animal.
 
I'd like to produce an Octopodcast on this subject -- Greg offered himself, and I thought getting both views would make a great show -- Thales, PM me if you are game! I'd like to do two quick segments (with me interviewing you both separately, one-on-one) and have them compiled into in one episode. I'll let you both listen to the finished product prior to my publishing it just in case anyone is concerned that it could be edited unfairly or misrepresented in some way. Perhaps it can be an effective way to make a statement -- perhaps useful as an alternate means of expression.
 
Rather hot, tired, and nonplussed here in Phoenix.

I think the fundemental message of the ethical consideration has been diverted by a seeming "personal" barrage, in which my name seems to figure.
This was in no way, shape, or form, my intention.

I have not "won". Cephs will continue to be imported, but I will fight it at every level, from the legal stance of importation to the rights of the collectors. I would like to see them all out of business.

It does appear that we are dealing with the "here and now", rather than the "hey, what happened?" twenty years in the future.

I would like my children to be able to swim down and see a wonderpus in the ocean, maybe some tangs and a grouper too. Am I really asking all of that much from you?

This boils down to a "rights of individual" battle. Obviously, most of you feel that your rights precede those of future humaniforms, and of the wild animals themselves. If you can all look into the mirror, and be content with what you see, then I guess you are correct, and I am totally wrong.

Greg
 
Once again, I believe that you very much misunderstand/misrepresent what it is that I (at least I) actually think about the subject. :biggrin2:
 
I suggest that at least the three of you (Greg, Tony, Richard) have a beer in Florida; posts are such ill equipped vehicles of nuance and opinion. I'll gladly join, always up for a healthy discussion and a well deserved brewski!
 
Good morning! Let me state some things:

1) OB is correct!!

2) Obviously this didn't go well. In hindsight, it does turn out that moving Thales' thread to the Supporters' forum was not a good idea. I can't really defend that position.

3) I have yet to hear anyone disagree with the "code of ethics" itself. Other than needing to change the word "octopus" with "cephalopod" in one or two spots, everyone is in full agreement.

So that leaves us with "how do we enforce it". I am experimenting with an "Exotic and Rare Species" forum under Ceph Care. The idea is simply that you need to be logged in order to view its contents. By forcing login, we are assured that the user is registered, and as such, they have accepted our terms of service, which have our "code" embedded within them. That way we have confidence that anyone who seeks info on keeping exotics isn't just some "window shopper".

Thales, I'm particularly interested in knowing whether you'd find this agreeable...
 
I think that is a tremendous idea...the information will be usable for those who actually will bother to go through a process, and not have to pay for it, which seems to be the biggest problem.

Nicely solved, Tony, Nancy, and Monti ! :cheers:

By the bye, I'll always sit down with friends and a cold one !
 
it seems that in the code of ethics there should be the statement that ceph keeping is for expert or advanced hobbyists only. it should be explicit and not just implied. after all its intended audience is potential keepers. also i am in agreement about where this is headed - " in the end, we conserve only what we love. we love only what we understand. we will understand only what we are taught." thank you for tonmo. zy
 

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