Extinction threat to cute clown fish immortalised in hit Hollywood movie 'Finding Nemo'
One of the world’s best-loved tropical fish faces extinction in parts of the world due to over-fishing and rising sea temperatures, a university researcher has warned.
Ironically, the smash hit film ‘Finding Nemo’ that did so much to educate children about marine life, may have hastened the decline of the clownfish. Demand for the brightly-coloured creature soared after the film was released in 2003. Whilst captive breeding programmes supplies about 50 per cent of stocks the rest come from the wild.
“My message to kids who loved the film is simple: tell your parents to leave Nemo in the sea where he belongs,” says Dr Billy Sinclair of the University of Cumbria. Recent studies of clownfish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have revealed dramatic population falls.
“In one coral reef we looked at in Keppel Bay, clownfish populations have dropped from 25 to just six in two years,” reveals Dr Sinclair, who spent five years in Queensland. Studies of catch data from commercial boats also showed large drops in the numbers caught since Finding Nemo was released. Over-harvesting by commercial fishermen at a time when many reefs are starting to die back from bleaching - caused by rising sea temperatures - is a potential culprit, suggests Dr Sinclair, who is now based the University of Cumbria’s Newton Rigg Campus, Penrith.
“I am not saying it is solely down to over-harvesting as climate change is clearly having an impact on the coral reefs and anemones on which the clownfish live,” says Dr Sinclair.
“But existing harvesting programmes will have to be reviewed in the light of what is happening to the reefs or we could see local extinctions in the near future.”
Small salt-water aquariums with an anemone and two tiny clownfish are sold for as little as fifty Australian dollars and marketed as the perfect ‘must-have’ marine gift for children. Clownfish, anemones and plankton are mutually dependant on each other for survival. The fish are also able to change sex if a population loses its dominant female.
Box office smash Finding Nemo tells the story of a boy clownfish who is captured on his way to school by a scuba diver. His father Marlin vows to rescue him from a tank in a Sydney dentist’s office.