What You Should Know About Livestock Availability

1. Every day we have new arrivals at our facility. Since the quality of health of livestock is of prime concern at CRA, often specimens come in and will not be offered for sale because of poor quality or poor eating habits. Certain times we may ask you to wait a few days till we are confident that the new arrival is eating well and fully acclimated to aquarium life.
2. Marine life is not manufactured, they are individually caught by hand nets, and divers and fish collectors can't always find what they want.
3. The popularity of a species often is greater than the supply. Therefore, sometimes these fish are not available.
4. Bad weather such as hurricanes and typhoons keep collectors from diving. Other times in less serious storms, the divers cannot go to the areas on the reef where the fish they wanted are found.
5. There are holidays throughout the year where many island divers either do not collect, or collect only during a limited number of hours. A good example is the month long Muslim holiday of Ramadan and everyone's favorite holiday, Christmas. During these holidays, both the collection and shipment of certain species is limited and availability affected.
6. Wars and violence influence the availability of livestock. Species that come from only certain areas, such as the Red Sea, Bali, and Fiji have been unavailable during times of trouble.
7. Many nations government agencies have specific annual shipping quantities permitted for the entire year. The quantity will change according to changes in area livestock population present. This species management is done to keep the population at a safe level for the long term.
8. The transporting of livestock from countries all over the world requires cargo space on many smaller airlines. This cargo space is often times at a premium and unavailable to the collector to ship.