Hawaiʻi island resident Kekoa Alip knows there are recent state reports showing at least some aquarium-trade fishing could resume off the Kona Coast without shrinking the region’s current numbers of prized reef fish.
But the 46-year-old, like others who grew up on the Kona Coast, also recalls that the lauʻīpala, or yellow tang, and other fish species sought by the pet trade used to be far more abundant along those shores than they are now — more than even during the nearly decade-long pause on aquarium-trade fishing there.
