In 2003, the hit classic, "Finding Nemo" was released. The movie portrayed a father clown fish raising his only son, who is handicapped, alone. When the clown fish's son is kidnapped by a mysterious figure, he is shown that a father will go through hell and back to get his child back. As he goes through this adventure, he meets unlikely characters and creates brand new friendships and loses stereotype views on other fish.
This movie had turn out to be such a hit that everyone now wanted their own clown fish. Children were begging for their own little Nemo that it started to not only affect the fish market, but also the Australian coral environment. Clown fish that were breed for captivity were all gone and sold, so to keep up with the demand of clown fish it became time for them to take them from the ocean and coral reefs.
This has been damaging the coral reef system. Since many anemones survive on eating the dirt the clown fish bring in, many of anemones are dying as well. With the lack of clown fish living in the Australian ocean, the fish that were once feed on by the anemones were now increasing in population.
Now in 2016, "Finding Dory," is going to take its place on the stage and Australian environmentalists are becoming extremely worried. This could cause another huge increase for clown fish and now blue tang. Since blue tang cannot be mate in captivity they would have to be taken from the wild.
Australian government has now created a law called "Operation Save Nemo" to protect clown fish from being taken from their environment every year. Only 500 clown fish can be harvested from the Australian ocean every year to preserve the population.
It seems that many people have forgotten the moral and plot of the story. Poor Nemo was taken away from his father to be a gift for a little girl. Now, everyone wants a clown fish, yet they are not seeing their consequences for doing so. Citizens buying clown fish are now becoming the villain.
I hope that "Operation Save Nemo" helps with clown fish population, but now we need to worry about citizens illegally buying clown fish when the 500 clown fish are collected and all sold. This will happen, there is no doubt. Now we must also worry about the collection and survival of the clown fish and even the blue tang. I hope that the American population stays away from buying wild clown fish. By staying away from buying wild clown fish we can not only keep Nemo at home, but also keep Nemo from going into extinct.
