being responsible or not

[july865]

i was reading some threads on RC where people were scoring great deals on fish, corals and inverts from their LFS or internet stores. that got me thinking.
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are we (as responsible reefers) obligated to buy from companies that practice captive breeding for all their livestock? imagine that all of us on RC baught 2 fish at the same time. all the tens of thousands of fish missing from the ocean, leaving a big blank spot there.
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dont get me wrong. i dont want to get on a soapbox and preach. but i am starting to feel a bit guilty buying fish or coral if i dont look into the stores practice of selling livestock and making sure that what i baught wasnt kidnapped or stolen. even if they do have a license to sell or trap fish from the ocean.
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does it matter to you?

[baj]

Yes definitely. I never knowingly buy wild caught specimens. Almost all corals in my tank are frags from hobbyists. The rest are bought from responsible stores (in fact I have only bought from SeaLife Florida).
I also buy my fish from an LFS owner who is responsible. He does not sell wild caught Banggai cardinals, and prefers to breed and sell his own. Anyways, the LFS owner is Fish4u in Salt Lake, and i hope other local Salt Lake hobbyists support a responsible LFS owner.
Banggai cardinals are overcollected, inspite of them captive-breeding readily. Apparently, they are still caught off Indonesia and they are cheaper than tank bred specimens. Thats why Banggai's prices aroun $10-$15 are most likely wild caught. This a bizarro-world logic, with tank bred specimens being priced higher, apparently because of the infrastructure put in to breed and
raise fry.
I do not consider it an unique achievement to purchase and display a specimen that is endangered in the wild, more so when its numbers are dwindling in part due to over collection.
On the question of licenses to trap and sell, these licenses are handed out in limited qty. And there are restrictions placed on the kind and amount of fish that can be sold under this license. The NOAA or a similar org. (dont remember) reviews this list yearly, based on numbers in the wild and sutainability. Moreover, it is my understanding that people who own these licenses also take care to ensure that they do not overcollect.
What is discouraging is that the US is not doing enough on banning the import of livestock from other regions of the oceans which are in the endangered list. (the worldwide endangered species list has several times more species listed than the US one for the same)