The upcoming release of "Finding Dory," the sequel to "Finding Nemo," has conservationists worried about renewed demand for clownfish and new demand for the blue tang fish.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. News reported that the 2003 animated film was a huge hit, making $380 million in domestic ticket sales and another $550 million overseas.
"Finding Nemo" also created a frenzy for pet clownfish, the species of the main character in the movie. Experts from Australia's Flinders University and the University of Queensland found that the clownfish populations along the coral reefs dropped as the demand for them as pets soared.
"The film had a very strong fish conservation message, but instead people decided, because Marlin and Nemo were such charismatic characters, that they wanted a clownfish as a pet," Flinders University associate Professor Karen Burke da Silva told ABC.
In "Finding Nemo," Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, along with the blue tang fish Dory, searched for his son, Nemo, who had been taken by a scuba diver and kept in an aquarium.
Teresa Telecky, director of wildlife at Humane Society International, said,
according to the Orlando Sentinel, that she fears the demand for the blue tang could soar with the upcoming release of the new movie, which stars Dory.
"I think we are facing the same problem, and it's even worse because the blue tang is really unsuitable for a home aquarium animal," Telecky said. "Blue tang live up to 50 years and get big, over a foot long, which would require a 180-gallon aquarium, the size of a couch."
Da Silva
told The Washington Post that 300,000 blue tang fish are imported into the United States each year and is worried that the number will spike once the movie comes out.
A campaign called A Million Kisses for Nemo, which da Silva helped start, is designed to encourage people to save the fish by not takimg them out of the wild as pets.
"Finding Dory," in which Ellen DeGeneres will again voice the forgetful blue tang fish character, will hit theaters June 17.
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