Tropical Fish… From Long Island?
A scuba diver floats through a colorful undersea world, gingerly catching butterflyfish, blue angelfish, and the other tropical species swimming around him. He later sells them to large commercial aquariums and home collectors.
No, he’s not on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. And he’s not off some pristine Caribbean isle. He’s in the chilly waters off Long Island. It turns out that the Gulf Stream carries weak, newborn fish from their homes near the Florida Keys northward in late summer. The fish are able to survive for a few months – just enough time for enterprising divers to snatch them up. Prime harvesting season runs from July to October.
(Source: The New York Times)
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